


(Don't You) Forget About Me

by kitkatt0430



Series: Hartmon Long Weekend 2019 [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: All five seasons happened but with Hartley, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Barry and Iris are good friends, Caitlin is concerned about Cisco's reaction to Frost, Cisco does remember a few things over time, Cisco gets amnesia because of a meta, Cisco would like his life back thanks, Established Relationship, Hartley and Cisco are married, Hartley is afraid that this is the end of their relationship, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 05 AU, even though some of it doesn't make sense, forgets the last five+ years of his life (basically the show), like metas and being married to Hartley, putting themselves back together, rape mention, self harm mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-08-18 19:56:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20197270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: When a meta with the ability to erase people's memories attacks Cisco, he loses the last five, nearly six, years of his life.  Everything after the accelerator accident just... gone.  So he doesn't know what should be basic facts about his life anymore.  Like his best friend is a CSI, and superhero, named Barry Allen.  Or his brother, Dante, died three years ago.Or that Hartley Rathaway, previously known as the co-worker from hell, is now Cisco's husband.(Alternatively, Hartley has to figure out how to keep their relationship from totally falling apart when Cisco forgets they're married.  Thankfully, Cisco seems pretty drawn to Hartley despite their not exactly stellar pre-accelerator explosion history.)





	(Don't You) Forget About Me

**Author's Note:**

> This one got away from me. It was 44 pages long when I finished the first draft in libre office. 21,000+ words long. It's somewhat bigger now. Anyway, this gets angsty in places so pull out a tissue box in case you feel a case of the sniffles coming on. Rest assured, they're gonna be okay.
> 
> (Also Nora is fine and dandy, living in the future with both her parents. I refuse to believe otherwise.)
> 
> Hartmon Long Weekend Prompts: Established Relationship, Domestic Fic, and (sort of) Getting Together

Cisco wakes up slowly. His body feels heavy and doesn’t want to cooperate. Eyelids especially seem determined to stay shut.

And then his memories start trickling back to him. The accelerator exploded. Ronnie was dead. Cisco shut the door on him…

Suddenly Cisco doesn’t want to wake up. He’d rather sleep some more, please.

But there’s an incessant beeping noise that’s filtered through his consciousness and so Cisco finally opens his eyes. If only so he can shut off the noise.

He’s in what takes him a minute to identify as Caitlin’s lab. But it looks so different now, like an actual infirmary and not a bio engineering lab. And he’s hooked up to a heart monitor.

What is going on?

The monitor spikes because Cisco is freaking out a little and someone – not Caitlin – rushes into the room.

It’s Hartley Rathaway and now Cisco is more confused than ever because… didn’t he get fired last month? What is he even doing here?

“Cisco,” Hartley beams, looking exhausted and relieved all at once. Not that Cisco’s processed that nuance yet. “You’re awake.”

“What are you doing here?” Cisco asks.

Something in Hartley’s face crumbles for a moment before his expression evens out. “Cisco… what’s the last thing you remember?”

“The accelerator… something went wrong and it… Ronnie… Ronnie’s dead,” Cisco’s voice cracks as he stares up at the ceiling, hands fisting the sheets of the medical bed he’s laying on. “I thought Dr. Wells fired you.”

“He did,” Hartley confirms, something… off in his tone. “That was years ago, Cisco.”

“What?!” Cisco sits up fast and nearly falls off the cot as he flings his legs over the side, struggling to get the leads for the heart monitor off now.

Hartley walks over and gently bats away Cisco’s hands, removing the leads and then glancing anxiously out the doorway. He pulls out his phone, unlocks it, and hands it to Cisco. “It’s 2019, Cisco. August 2019.”

“No, it’s December...” Cisco stares at the unlocked screen of the android phone. At the date sitting there staring him in the face. August 19, 2019. “Oh, shit.”

* * *

Hartley lets Caitlin take over dealing with Cisco pretty much the moment she walks back into the lab. He gives her a hurried explanation of what’s going on and then hightails it out the door and into the hallway and promptly starts crying. Which is how Barry finds him minutes later.

The speedster doesn’t even hesitate, he just pulls Hartley into a hug and rubs the blond’s shoulders, speaking soothingly, until Hartley calms down enough to explain, again, that his husband doesn’t remember anything after that awful night December 2013 when the accelerator exploded.

“He won’t know who I am,” Barry mutters, then shaking his head, he says, “he doesn’t know who Dr. Wells really was or how badly Wells betrayed us… he still thinks Ronnie’s death is his fault.”

Hartley nods, not trusting himself to speak and feeling incredibly selfish that all he can think about is how Cisco doesn’t remember how they became friends or their first kiss… first date… their wedding…

Their whole life together… and does it even mean anything if Cisco can’t remember any of it? Because 2013 Cisco Ramon hated Hartley Rathaway and what were the odds he’d fall in love with Hartley twice? What happens when Cisco finally notices the wedding ring on his finger?

He wants to start crying again, but Hartley instead focuses on pulling himself together. He can do this. He has to do this. For Cisco’s sake, if not his own.

Hartley goes to wash his face while Barry checks in on Cisco and reintroduces himself. And possibly help Caitlin demonstrate the varied abilities of metas. Hartley still looks like crap by the time he’s ready to go back and face his amnesiac husband, but Hartley didn’t sleep at all last night, waiting for Cisco to wake up after being knocked out by that meta. So looking like crap is acceptable right now.

Following the conversation absently as he heads back to Caitlin’s lab, he arrives just in time to chime in with, “actually I’m a meta too. Enhanced auditory sense, though, so I have to use specialized hearing aids to keep my hearing in check because otherwise I have near constant migraines.” Hartley gestures to his aids as he speaks, tilting his head to the side. “So not all the abilities people got from the accelerator are particularly cool or useful.”

Cisco usually argued with him about whether his abilities were useful. But this time there’s an awkward silence before Barry rolls his eyes, “you figured out who Zoom was after hearing him speak. Your hearing can be pretty useful, Hartley.”

“Thanks,” he mutters dryly… and then realizes Cisco is staring at him. At his hand.

“Is that a wedding ring?” Cisco asks in disbelief.

Suddenly Hartley is regretting not taking the ring off while he was in the bathroom. “Yeah. Our first anniversary is next week.” And his husband is staring at him like he’s shocked anyone would ever deign to marry him.

Hartley shoves his left hand into his pocket, hiding the ring from view. He knows he’s acting weird from Cisco’s point of view if that narrow eyed stare is anything to go by, but… these are awful circumstances. And Hartley's pretty sure he’s having an anxiety attack through all of this, so he’s actually holding up surprisingly well in that light.

Of course this is when Cisco realizes he has a wedding ring on too.

“Holy shit...” he’s staring at his hand, at the band that matches the one on Hartley’s finger, “I’m married too? Who is she?”

Hartley winces.

“Or he, I suppose,” Cisco continues on, entirely unaware of how he’s metaphorically stabbing Hartley in the chest. He looks expectantly at Caitlin for answers since she’s the only one in the room he both knows and likes at the moment. She, in turn, glances uncomfortably at Hartley.

“Me,” Hartley says, his voice unsteady and smaller than he’d intended to sound. “You’re… married to me.”

There’s a long silence. And then Cisco asks, “are you joking?”

* * *

Cisco knows its the worst thing he could’ve said the moment the words slip out of his mouth. Hartley couldn’t have looked more hurt if Cisco had slapped him and Caitlin looks so disappointed. Barry winces and Cisco wishes he could read the guy’s expressions better than this.

“I’m not joking,” Hartley replies, voice surprisingly steady despite the heartbreak written all over him. “Like I said… our first anniversary is next week.”

Feeling about two inches tall, Cisco resists the urge to immediately yank the ring off his finger. Because even though logic tells him he wouldn’t have married Hartley unless Hartley cleaned up his act a whole shit ton and stopped being so much of an utter dick… Cisco’s memories right now are of Hartley being a consistent and total asshole. That’s not who Cisco wants for a husband. And he shouldn’t feel guilty for feeling this way, but he does. He desperately wants to wake up from this bizarre dream to a world where everything makes sense and he hasn’t apparently lost the last six-ish years of his life and he’s not married to Hartley Rathaway. And he feels terrible about wanting that because he’s clearly hurting Hartley, who likely feels like he’s just lost his husband… because in a way he kind of has.

Cisco groans and buries his face in his hands. How is he supposed to handle this? How did this even happen?

The last one is a good question, so Cisco asks it out loud.

“We were looking into reports of a jewelry thief who was tampering with their victims memories. The most anyone had reported losing was a few hours,” Barry said. “Another theft was reported as being in progress, so we went to take a look. If it really was a meta, we were going to use your ability to create breaches to just drop them in a holding cell at the CCPD. We separated for a few minutes, though, and when I got back to you… you were unconscious already.” Barry sounds so guilty as he says that, but… it’s not really the guy’s fault. Can’t be everywhere at once, right? Even if he can run faster than sound, or whatever.

“Do you think I lost so much memory because I’m a meta too or because the meta we were looking for panicked?”

“A little of option a, a little of option b,” Barry replied. “Sometimes meta powers work differently on other metas than they do on regular humans. There’s a meta who can manipulate people's emotions who was using rage to just walk into a bank and steal money while everyone else was going crazy assaulting one another. But it reacted differently with me; took longer to kick in and then had to be ‘cured’ with light therapy because it just would not wear off. Luckily Oliver was there to help because your powers hadn’t manifested yet, so he was able to keep me distracted until you and Caitlin could fix me.”

Setting aside the question of who Oliver was for later, he asks the next most relevant question he can think of. “What are my powers, anyway.”

And it just sort of flows from there. Cisco asks questions and the three of them answer. Usually Barry and Caitlin, sometimes Hartley.

Cisco’s got some sort of clairvoyance along with the ability to direct vibrational energy – either offensively in combat or in the creation of both inter-dimensional and intra-dimensional breaches for fast traveling. Ronnie didn’t actually die in the accelerator disaster, but over a year later when a temporal paradox created a singularity that nearly destroyed the city. Cisco has met and is apparently now friends with the Arrow (Oliver Queen, which answered one of his unasked questions). His alter ego Vibe has a large fanbase and is an inspiration as both a hispanic super hero and as an openly queer one.

(Apparently there was a picture circulating of Vibe and the Pied Piper kissing after a recent close call with a serial killer who could mute meta powers. Cisco had no idea what to think about that and absolutely zero desire to see the picture.

... the curiosity was totally killing him.)

Dr. Wells was evil and actually a time traveling speedster from the future who murdered the real Dr. Wells and took his place because of nefarious reasons. Cisco has to get them to repeat that one a few times before it sinks in that his mentor was a murdering psychopath who’d made himself appear to be whatever he thought they needed most to get their loyalty for as long as said loyalty was useful.

A peer to Caitlin, a mentor and father figure to Cisco and Barry, and… and a lover to Hartley.

(Suddenly Hartley's behavior while they were coworkers started to make an uncomfortable amount of sense. Which Cisco didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to excuse or have explained or forgive.)

But Doctor Wells was also still alive… sort of. The original Wells was dead, but they’d met other versions of him from parallel realities. Earth-2 was where their friend Harry Wells lived, who ran that Earth’s STAR Labs, supported his daughter in her efforts as a speedster hero known as Quick, and occasionally helped their team with their scientific endeavors. There was the Earth-19 version of Dr. Wells, a somewhat ditzy artist and author who’d brought them joy and hope and friendship when they’d desperately needed that in their lives after a speedster named Zoom nearly fractured the team through repeated, horrific traumas. He was known as HR and he’d died saving the life of Barry’s fiance. Sherlock – or some French variation – was the latest Wells they’d temporarily had join the team. He’d helped them deal with their serial killer problem and then gone home to marry yet another version of the same woman he’d divorced on a number of other Earths.

Cisco was basically ready to be done at that point. How the hell did he keep any of this straight even with his memories of the last six years? And the worst part is… that’s not even the half of it.

Six years of steadily escalating comic-book style craziness. This is what Cisco’s life had become.

He needs some space alone to process. So Cisco heads to his lab, alone because he insists on it, and proceeds to quietly freak the hell out.

* * *

Once Cisco heads off to his lab again, Hartley drops into the nearest chair like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

The look on Cisco’s face when Hartley’d told him they were married...

Hartley had not felt such a strong desire to self harm in a very long time. But now he wanted so very badly to do something. Anything. Even something small like digging his nails into his palms until he started bleeding. He felt too much and it hurt and he needed an outlet somehow and…

Caitlin wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rocked back and forth, letting Hartley press his face against her stomach as he began to cry all over again. And then to hyperventilate because, yeah, he’s slipped over the edge from anxiety to outright panic. When darkness tunnels in on him, Hartley's honestly not sure if he passed out or Caitlin sedated him.

Hartley wakes up a few hours later, groggy and muzzy and ever so hopeful that what he remembers is a nightmare.

It’s not.

“I’m going to take Cisco home with me for the night, okay?” Caitlin tells him. “I think you should stay with Barry and Iris. Don’t be alone, Hartley. And call your therapist.”

So that’s what Hartley does. Because its good advice. He calls his therapist as soon as he finds his phone and gets an emergency appointment for the following morning, eight AM. Then he lets Barry run him to the West-Allen apartment where he spends the night in their guest room, mostly staring at the ceiling. (Barry is nice enough to pick up clothing and Hartley’s meds for the physicist instead of making him walk through an apartment full of reminders of everything Cisco and Hartley suddenly aren’t.)

Therapy helps some. Hartley makes another appointment for later in the week because he knows he’s going to need it. Even if Cisco were to get his memories all back today… Hartley’s going to need it.

“It’s okay to fight for your relationship with Cisco,” his therapist told him.

That’s good to know, but… the truth is that Hartley doesn’t know how to fight to keep his relationship with Cisco. And that’s terrifying.

* * *

Hartley doesn’t show up at STAR Labs until around ten and he looks like hell.

Caitlin told Cisco that Hartley’d be late coming in because he was meeting with his therapist. And Cisco felt oddly relieved to hear that Hartley was taking care of his mental health. Especially after learning about Hartley's panic attack and anxiety disorder the night before.

However, this meant that Cisco spent two hours - from eight until ten - waiting for Hartley to arrive while sitting at his computer reading up on meta humans and twisting the wedding ring on his finger because... he had quickly come to realize from a short perusal of his lab that he doesn't recognize any of his projects. A lab full of experiments and half finished devices that Cisco doesn’t have even the slightest glimmer of recognition for at all. And Caitlin’s being intentionally useless, insisting that he’s just going to have to wait for Hartley because the two of them were working on it all together. (He suspects she's hoping to force Cisco to interact with Hartley beyond polite niceties and that just makes Cisco anxiously twist the ring on his finger all the more.)

It doesn’t help that Cisco has the distinct feeling that Caitlin is deliberately hiding things from him. Not maliciously or anything like that – it’s Caitlin, she doesn’t do malicious – but… he’s not her Cisco anymore. There’s nearly six years difference between them and she’s waiting for him to remember rather than just telling him everything.

And maybe that’s the right track to take, but Cisco just wants to know it all now and then get on with his life. He’s the one who’s lost his memories, after all. He’s the one whose woken up to have his life flipped upside down and backwards and set to the tune of an MCU soundtrack. (Preferably _Iron Man_.)

But that’s not fair of him, really. Everyone else has lost something too. Cisco doesn’t really know Barry, but they’re apparently best friends and Caitlin clearly doesn’t feel like she can confide in him right now – which Cisco hopes isn’t indicative of where their friendship is at even if he did have all his memories – and Hartley…

Its so fucking unfair that Cisco can look at Hartley and want to shut the door in his face at the same time he wants to wrap Hartley up in a blanket and just hold him. The conflicting feelings are driving Cisco nuts.

But Hartley doesn’t look like he slept well and has the slightly jittery reactions of a person who has consumed too much caffeine in a short amount of time. So Cisco shoves down on his discomfort and lets Hartley explain the projects they’re working on.

Of course, that leads to an awkward silence and, once again, Cisco can’t help but observe that Hartley looks terrible. Definitely not getting enough sleep.

“So, um… how did we end up dating?” Since there was no good way to ease into the question, Cisco just blurted it right out.

Hartley smiled wistfully, his gaze going a touch distant. “Well, we became friends first. After the absolute shit show that went down with Dr. Wells, it was kind of hard for all of us not to be friends. Sort of like Hermione, Ron, and Harry with the troll, except we took longer and it was an evil speedster with a god complex.” His smile brightened a touch more when Cisco snorted with amusement. “Then you dated a barista from Jitters who turned out to be a reincarnated priestess from Ancient Egypt with hawk powers. But she left you for her soulmate who was a reincarnated Ancient Egyptian prince with hawk powers. And you think I’m joking, but I’m not. That was a really weird one.”

Cisco snickered again, unable to imagine any of that. But he’d take Hartley's word that it happened.

“We hung out a lot as friends and you were really supportive while I reconnected with my parents. Honestly, I don’t think that would’ve gone even half so well if you hadn’t been willing to listen to me vent and give me advice. In fact… it was your advice that had me start seeing a therapist. Who then recommended me to a psychiatrist because I have an anxiety disorder. Taking meds so that I'm not feeling anxious all the time made me a good forty-percent less of a constant asshole, I swear.” Hartley’s smile wavered for a moment and then dropped away entirely.

“Then Dante died,” and he paused a moment to reach out when Cisco flinched – Caitlin had told Cisco about Dante the evening before, one of the few things that she hadn’t been reluctant to share – but then hesitated to actually take Cisco’s hand. Hartley ended up dropping his hand back to his side awkwardly. “You pushed Barry away pretty hard for a while there. Caitlin too. But for some reason you let me stay close and we just… I thought for the longest time it was just one-sided because I couldn’t imagine you might like me back. Then, around Thanksgiving – 2016 – you asked me out and I thought I’d misheard you call it a date. Wishful thinking and all that. When you kissed me? Made it very clear I didn’t mishear anything.”

Cisco nodded slowly. “So… we started dating November, got married nine months later?”

“A year and nine months later,” Hartley corrected in slight amusement.

A pained expression crossed Cisco’s face. “Shit. I swear I can math properly.”

Hartley patted Cisco’s shoulder absently, whatever hesitation he had earlier seeming to have worn off somewhat. “You’re under a lot of stress. And probably still having issues remembering the date?”

“Well it not being snowy and freezing outside certainly helps sell that its summer,” Cisco sighed. “But, yeah, I was expecting a leap from 2013 to 2014 in a few weeks, not jumping from 2013 to 2019. It’s a lot to take in.”

“Maybe you should talk to Barry about it. He actually does have amnesia experience, though he lost all his memories and tried to get us to call him Bart. Which, when he got his memories back, he was very insistent we never call him that ever again. Tried to get us to promise never to speak of it again, but obviously we just sort of changed the subject and had an unspoken pact to use it to torment him again when he least expects it,” Hartley told him with a half-hearted teasing grin.

Still, Cisco found that he couldn’t help but grin back in response.

“He also spent nine months in a coma right after being struck by lightning the night the accelerator… failed.” Hartley’s smile dimmed entirely. “So he actually has a fair bit of experience with situations similar to yours. And he’s your friend and cares about you a lot, so if he can help you deal with all this...” Hartley made a gesture that Cisco’s felt like it should mean something to him, but his brain just wouldn’t parse it, “that’d mean a lot to him.”

That was when it sort of clicked for Cisco that Hartley really did care about him. He wasn’t trying to push himself on Cisco, but was instead encouraging him towards support systems that Cisco was more likely to find acceptable than someone whose last interaction he could remember prior to waking up in Caitlin’s infirmary the day before was full of passive aggressive sniping.

Hartley just wanted Cisco to find stability. And that was… it made Cisco’s chest feel warm and twisty all at the same time.

“Anyway, where was I… right, we started dating November 2016, and then finally officially moved in together about a year later, right after Barry and Iris’ wedding. Which was a disaster. There were Nazi invaders from Earth-X.”

“Nazi invaders from Earth-X,” Cisco repeated incredulously.

“That’s another ‘I wish I was making shit up but I’m not’ story,” Hartley offered with a grimace. “Suffice it to say, when we got married there were no Nazi invaders. Of course, both our parents were there, so there was still drama to be had. I don’t think your mom has forgiven my father yet which is totally fair; I’m just glad she doesn’t blame me for his bad behavior.”

Cisco wanted to laugh but just… hearing Hartley casually talk about their wedding was weird.

“We’d been practically living together for a while before moving in together, though,” Hartley said, returning to his much abbreviated retelling of their journey from rivals to friends to lovers to… husbands. “And we’d been talking about it for a while, sort of idly looking at apartment listings. We ended up settling on a two bedroom apartment that suited us both. It’s where we still live now...” Hartley trailed off and he just looked… sad.

Swallowing hard, Cisco wondered if Hartley had spent the previous night alone in that apartment. He hoped not. Hartley deserved to have a good support network too.

“I want to go there. After work tonight.” Cisco hadn’t even realized that’s what he wanted until the words were coming out of his mouth. It was just too awkward staying at Caitlin’s and he hadn’t slept particularly well on her sleeper sofa. Maybe it’d be better in his own home, even if he didn’t remember it.

Of course, it might be worse too.

Hartley looked utterly relieved. “That sounds good. I can show you our pictures; maybe that’ll help you remember something.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Cisco didn’t exactly feel hopeful, though. He hadn’t remembered anything of the missing years since waking up, despite all the prompting he’d been given.

He was afraid it was just all gone. Permanently.

The skepticism, or maybe just his tone, seemed to make Hartley wilt a little, though.

“Look… I don’t...” Hartley sighed and ran a hand through his hair nervously. “I don’t expect you to start thinking of me as your husband or your significant other or even as your friend. What you remember about me is that I treated you pretty shitty and you didn’t deserve any of it. I don’t even expect you to forgive me for any of it either. But… I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance anyway. Because we were happy together and… maybe we can find our way there together. Even if you never remember the last six years, we can still… I don’t know, ‘make new memories together’ sounds really trite now that I’m saying it out loud, but… that’s basically where I’m going with this.”

Cisco’s throat tightened because he didn’t… he really just didn’t know what he wanted. “I want to see Dante’s grave tomorrow,” he said, sidestepping the problem of his relationship with Hartley entirely for now.

Hartley closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. “Okay. We can do that.”

“I’m sorry, Hartley,” Cisco said, avoiding the other man’s eyes and feeling like a heel. “I need some time to think things over about everything else. Maybe… maybe seeing the apartment will help me figure myself out.”

“Right. Look I don’t… I don’t think we’re really going to make any progress on any of these projects today. Or at all this week. You don’t remember the details and I’m a mess so I probably shouldn’t be working on anything that requires power tools anyway… so how about we have lunch with Caitlin and then head to our place?” Hartley sounded hopeful and Cisco felt his heart clench a little.

“Sure.” He just hoped this didn’t turn out to be a terrible idea.

* * *

The apartment was just how they’d left it two days ago.

There was some paper cluttering up the coffee table where they’d been working on one of those ‘escape the book’ puzzles together. They’d gotten about halfway through over the weekend. The retelling of Hamlet as a choose your own adventure novel that Hartley’d been reading was tucked away on the shelf beneath the table. Hartley had been reading aloud the funnier passages for Cisco’s amusement.

The kitchen still has a few dishes on the drying rack and in their bedroom the bed is unmade because… they’d never gotten around to changing the sheets Sunday evening like they’d planned.

There are pictures everywhere. Hanging over the table in the entryway is one of those picture collages and there are more stand alone pictures scattered throughout the living room on the entertainment center and the built in bookshelves.

They don’t make it past the entryway, however, before Cisco starts looking overwhelmed and lost. Over half the furniture is new to him, after all. And probably the pictures are throwing him for a loop too.

“Do you want to sit down?” Hartley asked, uncertain. “Something to drink maybe?” Hartley's definitely getting himself a glass of water. Because otherwise he’ll start fidgeting and work himself up. He needs to stay calm for this. The last thing he wants to do is scare Cisco by having another panic attack.

“No, I… I’m okay.” Cisco visibly steeled himself and then gestured to the picture collage. “Um… can we move this in there and… and maybe you can tell me about the pictures?”

Hartley nodded and carefully pulled the collage off the wall. It felt weird to be taking it down. Hopefully… hopefully Cisco wouldn’t mind it going back up when they were done looking at it.

“Here,” Hartley handed the pictures over. “I’m going to get some water and join you on the couch. Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

“Actually… water does sound good.” Cisco took the collage frame gingerly and padded over to the couch.

Once armed with glasses of water, Hartley joined him, making sure to give them plenty of space instead of sitting close like they normally did. He didn’t want to make Cisco feel crowded or boxed in or anything like that.

“So which picture do you want to know about first?” Hartley asked.

“Let’s just start from the top right and move across from there,” Cisco replied, staring at the pictures intensely.

“Right… so, top picture is when we reopened STAR Labs after Barry inherited it. Dr. Wells left it to Barry as some kind of taunt, but I don’t think it really went the way he thought it would. Anyway, Iris took the picture for us.” The picture in question shows Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, and Hartley all grouped together, arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning with the front doors to STAR Labs behind them. “We were all pretty excited to get back to work, both in pushing the boundaries of science and being Team Flash all together again.”

“Sounds like it was a good day,” Cisco says quietly, fingers brushing the edge of the frame by the photo.

“It was. That one,” Hartley gestured to the top left (which was more like left-center compared to the rows beneath it), “was taken after the really bizarre weekend with Kendra, Carter, and Savage. Kendra was the barista you dated,” he pointed at Kendra’s face in the picture, then moved to Carter, “Carter was her reincarnated soulmate. Savage was the immortal asshole who’d been murdering them every time they reincarnated. So obviously we helped kick his ass and Kendra stabbed him with a special knife so he’d die permanently. We had help from Team Arrow,” he added, giving names to Oliver, Thea, Felicity, Laurel, and Dig in the photo. “Barry’s in this picture, but he also took the picture. Super speed,” he elaborated when Cisco’s eyebrow went up in question. “He’s very good at timing the picture so that the phone barely has any time to fall before he’s back to snatch it out of the air.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“He likes calling them selfies.” Hartley exchanged a smile with Cisco and felt his breath catch a little.

Cisco always had such lovely smiles.

“A-anyway, next picture,” Hartley moved on to one of just the two of them, sitting on a blanket out in the sunlight. The picture had been taken while they’d been engrossed in some conversation – more likely anime than engineering – and they looked utterly absorbed by each other. There’s another photo from that date – a double date with Barry and Iris – sitting over on built in bookshelves at the back of the room. In that one they were kissing while Hartley’s hand cupped Cisco’s cheek.

“We’re… on a date in that photo, aren’t we?” Cisco asks, but in such a way that Hartley knows he’s guessing, not remembering.

“Yeah. Double date with Barry and Iris. Iris was the one taking the picture. It was at the arboretum and we brought a picnic lunch for the four of us. Caitlin was supposed to be there too, but she’d just rejected Julian and felt weird about being a fifth wheel.”

“Who’s Julian?”

“Ah, right, Julian Albert. He’s a CSI that worked with Barry at the CCPD for a while. But he’s in England now so that he could be closer to his parents while his mother went through chemo. She’s doing much better now, so Julian might be coming back soon. We’ve all been hoping he’ll move back, anyway. Even Caitlin; things were kind of awkward between them for a while, but they’re good friends now. He knows about all the meta related stuff we do and… he thinks it’s ridiculous that Barry is a speedster yet somehow always manages to be late anyway.” Hartley snickered and shook his head ruefully. “Barry’s crappy time management skills are basically stuff of legend at this point.”

From there, Hartley elaborates on the other photos. There’s one of Joe, Wally, Cecile, Iris, Barry, and baby Jenna. Another of Julian and Barry being ‘serious’ CSIs. A more recent addition of Ralph hanging out with the rest of the STAR Labs team. (He was, unfortunately, gone for the next few weeks, working a case that had taken him out of town and intending to visit family once he was done with work. Though maybe it was for the best to have one less person around that Cisco couldn’t remember, for now anyway.) Iris and Barry asleep on a couch together. Caitlin and Iris hanging out together at the mall… 

And then there were the photos of the Hartley and Cisco lounging together on an outdoor swing from the photoshoot they had done for their engagement announcement. The two of them kissing at their wedding. The two of them in their wedding tuxes, each with an arm around Jerrie's shoulders (she'd looked lovely in her dress that day). Building a ridiculously ornate sandcastle during their honeymoon.

They looked so happy together. So in love.

Anxiety creeps along in the back of Hartley's mind. What if Cisco never loves him like that again? Never looks at him with any number of expressions that send heat crawling down Hartley’s spine? Never kisses him or holds him again?

He’s suddenly taken by the need to get up and move, to let out this excess energy somehow. Hartley’s still uncertain about referring to his outlets when he gets like this ‘stimming’ because he feels like he’s appropriating other people’s terminology. But stimming is exactly what it is, letting him calm down and focus while his hands are busy letting out all his excess energy. (The ADD is still a very, very new diagnosis but the change to his medication to include treating the ADHD alongside his anxiety has done wonders for keeping him calm and focused.)

Unfortunately, Hartley isn’t sure a fidget cube is really going to cut it this time.

Cisco is staring blankly at the photographs and Hartley decides that there’s two entire bedrooms worth of things to clean that he can bounce back and forth between until this nervous energy finally fades to more manageable levels. So he makes his excuses, grabs his water, and vanishes into their bedroom to change the sheets first.

* * *

Honestly, Cisco barely notices Hartley get up and leave because he’s just stuck staring at their wedding picture.

They look good together. Cisco doesn’t quite know what to make of that.

Eventually Cisco pushes the collage onto the coffee table, making room first by gathering up the loose papers and the book in the middle of it all to add to the shelf below the table. Then he gets up and just sort of wanders around the room. His foosball table is there in the back, though there’s a multi-paned glass ‘cover’ that makes Cisco think they use it as a table pretty often too. The vintage looking red stools (which seem very comfy when Cisco pokes them) lend to the idea that they’ll dine around it… or at least put their drinks on it when company is over.

The wall behind the foosball table is one big built-in bookshelf covered in books with various knickknacks and framed photographs scattered about. There’s a picture there that looks like it came from the same arboretum date as the one in the collage. This one of Hartley and Cisco kissing and it makes Cisco feel…

It makes Cisco feel warm and loved. He doesn’t know what to do with that feeling though. Doesn’t know how to be okay with Hartley being the one who makes him feel that way.

Cisco Ramon and Hartley Rathaway… they’re like oil and water, the two just don’t mix. That had always been the gist of what Dr. Wells would say about them, telling them they were too alike and too different to ever really get along. But then Dr. Wells was apparently evil and a liar.

It occurs to Cisco at this point that he doesn’t know if he took Hartley's last name. Or if Hartley took his. Sure, maybe they both stuck with their pre-existing last names, but…

Cisco fumbles for his wallet and checks his driver’s license. It still lists him as Cisco Ramon. There’s one question answered. Now to find out if Hartley was still ‘Rathaway’ or had changed his name to ‘Ramon’.

Nervously, Cisco approached the bedroom door, knocking a little before pushing it open.

Hartley's a flurry of movement, stripping the sheets off the bed. But he pauses when Cisco takes a few steps into the room – their bedroom, their bed… where they sleep… together… oh, fuck, what is Cisco doing here? – and says quickly, “we, uh, didn’t get to this on Sunday, but I thought you’d appreciate clean sheets to sleep on tonight. If you want to sleep here, that is. I was going to take the guest room.”

Something relaxes in Cisco’s chest even as something else tenses up in disappointment. That’s been happening a lot around Hartley and its getting to be really annoying.

“I was wondering… after we got married, did you… did you take my last name or...” Cisco trails off, eyes drawn to the way Hartley's hands won’t stop fidgeting with the sheets. Something about Hartley's jerky movements makes him want to walk over and draw Hartley into a hug, reassure him that its all going to be okay.

Cisco stays where he is by the living room door.

“We both kept our last names. For professional reasons,” Hartley replied. “Though I came pretty close to taking your name. We discussed that a lot. I think that if I hadn’t reconciled with my parents, I definitely would’ve changed my last name to Ramon, but… we’ve both got a lot of patents under our names for STAR Labs and when we’re working with other labs or tech companies… we just decided to not make people deal with two Dr. Ramons.”

Cisco snorted in amusement then paused. “I’ve got a doctorate now? I… only remember having a master’s.”

“Not yet, actually. But with all the work you’ve done in the field of meta human research and all the papers you’ve published, your alma mater is considering you for an honorary doctorate. We’re supposed to hear back in sometime in the next few weeks.” Hartley looked proud at whatever he was remembering and Cisco jealously wished he could remember too. “You were already planning to go back for your doctorate anyway, but when you started the application process they waved the possibility of an honorary degree at you. So you might start a doctorate program in the spring semester… or you might be a PhD already by the time the spring semester starts.”

“I… I’ve published papers that… that are PhD worthy?” Cisco felt a little dizzy and suddenly Hartley's there beside him, a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Your work is brilliant,” Hartley tells him firmly. “The field of meta human studies is relatively new, but you are one of the foremost experts in that field. Pretty much any research into how meta human powers work references papers you’ve written. You’ve even patented a device capable of replicating weather manipulation powers that is going to revolutionize everything from indoor theme parks to climate change research. There’s already talk of it being a key component in reversing some of the worst effects of global warming. Of course you deserve a doctorate, Cisco. Your work is revolutionary and deserves recognition. You deserve recognition.”

The Cisco he’d been a few days ago deserved recognition. Cisco’s not so sure about the person he is now deserving it at all. But Hartley is so fiercely proud of him that Cisco nods uncertainly instead of objecting. “Thanks,” he offers, feeling like its not nearly enough. He just doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m going to...” he gestured at the door and escaped back into the living room to continue his investigation of the space.

He finds himself returning back to the arboretum pictures several times, though. And their wedding photo. And just… marveling at how in love they both look.

If Cisco were being honest with himself – and he’s not ready for that yet, so he isn’t – he’d admit that he’s actually rather jealous of that Cisco, finding so much happiness with friends and his husband.

* * *

Hartley wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of Cisco messing around in the kitchen. The alarm clock tells Hartley that its an ungodly hour of the night (or morning, depending on one's point of view) when all good meta humans should be sleeping. But Cisco is awake.

So Hartley gets up from the guest bed and puts on his slippers and stumbles out into the living room. “Everything okay?” he asks, words only slightly slurred with sleepiness.

“Yeah, sorry if I woke you...” Cisco pauses and stares, blushing. “I, uh… I couldn’t sleep. So I thought tea might help. Something caffeine free with chamomile.”

It takes longer than it ought to for Hartley to realize Cisco is staring at Hartley’s chest because he was sleeping in pajama bottoms but no shirt. It’s weirdly gratifying to know that, even if Cisco isn’t romantically attracted to him right now, at least the physical attraction is still there.

Hartley offered Cisco a tired smile. “Wasn’t having the greatest dreams, so I’m glad to have been woken up. Maybe make it tea for two? If you don’t mind the company?”

“That’s, uh… that’s fine. Totally fine. I’ll just...” Cisco turns around sharply and collects another mug from the cabinets.

Hartley joined him in the kitchen and retrieved a decaf vanilla tea from the pantry. They had a few other chamomile teas, including one that did wonders for Hartley when he had a headache, but this was the one they both liked best when they needed help dealing with insomnia.

Cisco put on the electric kettle and then turned to find Hartley – still shirtless – adding the tea bags to the mugs and fetching out the stevia packets.

“Aren’t you cold?” Cisco blurted out.

“Not really,” Hartley replied. He always seemed to run a little warmer than Cisco and it wasn’t exactly uncommon for him to go shirtless in their apartment while Cisco kept a t-shirt on. Taking a final moment to bask in how flustered Cisco was looking, Hartley asked, “do you want me to put a shirt on?”

“No… yes...” Cisco ran an agitated hand through his sleep mussed hair. “Shit, I don’t know.”

Fun as it was for Hartley to tease Cisco a little, it wasn’t worth the distress Cisco’s confusion was causing himself. “I’ll go put a shirt on. Be right back.” Hartley returned to the guest room just long enough to pull on his discarded pajama top and then returned to the kitchen.

“You’re really… fit,” Cisco observed, blushing and looking pointedly anywhere but Hartley.

“Well I do moonlight as a superhero on occasion,” Hartley teased dryly.

“So do I, apparently,” Cisco muttered in an incredulous undertone.

“You’re pretty fit too, ya know,” Hartley added. And it was always such a pleasure to have those taught, toned muscles… and Hartley's thoughts did not need to be going there right now.

“I know. Which is awesome, but also disconcerting because I must work out more than I did before. My body looks different than I remember. It feels different, but also familiar which is just weird all over again. And I keep waiting to have one of those vibes you all say I get. No, waiting is way too tame of a word. Dreading having a vibe. That’s more like it.” Cisco groaned and settled on one of the island bar stools. “And you’re different. You’re so different and I’m so fucking confused all the time. And now I keep noticing that you’re hot and...” Cisco choked on a hysterical noise that might’ve been a sob or a laugh or both.

Tentatively touching Cisco’s shoulders, lightly so Cisco could pull away easily, Hartley asked, “may I hug you? It just… seems like you could use one.”

Cisco nodded, miserably, and Hartley immediately wrapped his arms around his husband. There was a noise that was definitely a sob this time and Cisco began to cry against Hartley’s chest.

Hartley wanted to cry too. Cisco crying always made him tear up. But he did his best to hold back on that instinct, instead rubbing a soothing circle against Cisco’s back and murmuring that he knew it didn’t seem like it now, but it’d be okay again eventually.

“How can you sound so sure?” Cisco wanted to know.

“Because you’re not the only one I’m trying to convince right now,” Hartley admitted softly.

“The bed feels empty,” Cisco said abruptly, face still buried against Hartley’s chest. “I don’t remember being in the habit of sleeping with someone else beside me. But I guess my body does, because it felt empty and that’s why I couldn’t sleep. So would you… I want you to sleep in... in our bed with me.”

“Okay,” Hartley agreed, scarcely able to believe his ears. He wanted to drop a kiss against the top of Cisco’s head, to share the grateful warmth bubbling up inside of him. But it was too soon and he was wary of inadvertently pushing Cisco away by trying to hold him too close.

Then the kettle beeped to let them know the water was ready and Cisco nearly bolted from Hartley's embrace. “Right, I’ll just… pour the tea and then we can, um, we can go to bed. Maybe read for a little bit? Yeah, I’ll just… grab something off the shelves and read for a bit.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Hartley agreed, feeling a little achy and off centered. He could finish his Hamlet book later; he needed a comfort book at the moment. _Good Omens _maybe? After how good the series on Amazon Prime had turned out, Hartley was due a re-read…

“Oh shit,” Hartley said, eyes wide in shock.

“What? What is it?” Cisco looked worried.

“Oh, sorry, its just… you don’t know anymore… you get to watch it for the first time all over again.” Hartley beamed. “There’s a six episode _Good Omens_ series on Prime. Neil Gaiman helmed it and its basically a love letter to his friendship with Terry Pratchett. Who… passed away a few years ago.”

“That’s both amazing and depressing all at once. Who plays Crowley and Aziraphale?” Cisco demanded.

“David Tennant as the most glorious redheaded Crowley ever. And Michael Sheen as a pitch perfect Aziraphale. It runs really close to the book and its just… it’s absolutely wonderful. And so very, very queer.”

“I wanna binge watch that so bad, but I should sleep,” Cisco complained with a smile.

“Tomorrow,” Hartley promised.

“After… after we visit Dante’s...” Cisco trailed off. “He’s really dead, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. I’m so sorry, Cisco.”

“I just… I think about him being dead and I feel so numb.”

Hartley’s not sure if another hug would be welcome so soon after Cisco basically fled the last one. So he reaches out and takes Cisco’s hand in his own and squeezes lightly. He doesn’t say anything, if only because he can’t figure out something that won’t sound like a useless platitude.

But maybe he did the right thing anyway, because Cisco squeezes his hand back. “Do we have the any good dragon fantasy books in there? Not Paolini’s stuff; the first book was okay, but I just about lit the second book on fire, it was so bad.”

“Yeah, his writing style went down hill throughout those books. I made it to the end of the series, but I also ended up writing detailed essays to post on my blog about why his books were awful. It was both masochistic and weirdly cathartic all at the same time.

"Anyway, if you want telepathic dragons, Anne McCaffery does it better, though the _Pern_ series veers towards science fiction pretty hard in some of the books.” Hartley pauses and then adds, “also I’m pretty sure she had some sort of rape kink because mentions non-consensual sex gets casually dropped in a surprising number of her earlier books. Which makes rereading them really uncomfortable for me these days.”

Cisco looks like he wants to ask something, but bites his tongue, possibly literally, to avoid asking. Hartley's pretty sure he knows what Cisco wants to ask, but its not something Hartley wants to discuss at two in the morning. So he happily plows on to the next book suggestion.

“If you’re not wanting telepathic dragons, we’ve got _The Song in the Silence_, which has dragons and demons and prophecies. And inter-species romance with a human and a dragon that does not turn into squick, though its a very deus ex machina type thing.” Cisco snorted in amusement at that one and Hartley grinned easily. “It’s book one of three. Then there’s… well I don’t remember if _Prospero’s Children_ has dragons in it,” they’d arrived at the bookshelves by then and Hartley tapped the spine of the book in question, “but the sequel should have at least one.”

“Well, that book is called _Dragon Charmer_,” Cisco observed wryly.

“Exactly. There’s a few other books we’ve got with dragons, one of which is possibly the gayest romance novel I’ve ever read; I half expected it to start pouring glitter out of its pages. Which was, surprisingly enough, not points in its favor. The writer used way too much purple prose and I couldn’t finish it, which is probably why I can’t remember the title. You wouldn’t let me get rid of it, though. You were giggling and quoting the damn thing at me for weeks afterwards.”

Cisco looked around a bit, then plucked _The Song in the Silence_ off the shelf. “I’m going to find that gay dragon book, so I can memorize the worst quotes from it again.”

Hartley wants to kiss that smugly teasing smile right off Cisco’s face. Instead he grabs a well worn copy of _Good Omens_ and follows Cisco to bed. They drink tea and read books and, eventually, go back to sleep.

* * *

Cisco woke up to the familiar feeling of Hartley curled up against his chest. He was stroking his fingers through Hartley's hair without even a thought.

And then his sleepy mind remembered that, no matter how familiar everything felt, he couldn’t recall ever doing this before. He knew he had, knew it because everything felt so peaceful and right, but he just couldn’t…

A year and nine months dating. Another year married. Nearly three years altogether. And Cisco still couldn’t remember any of it. Nor the two years before that.

The outline of their lives that Hartley had told him about the day before was appealing. Cisco wanted that life with a desperation that scared him a little. But he was starting to feel less odd about the idea of having that life with Hartley.

Hartley who was being very patient, trying not to scare Cisco off with the strength of his feelings. Yet Cisco still dreaded the inevitable moment when Hartley said ‘I love you’ and Cisco wouldn’t be able to say it back.

How the hell did he wind up in this sort of situation?

Sliding out of bed, Cisco felt his chest clench a little when Hartley made a displeased sound and latched on to Cisco’s pillow in his sleep. Before he even realized he was doing it, Cisco was reaching out to run his fingers along Hartley’s shoulder soothingly.

He backed away and fled into the bathroom. Then he grabbed his toothbrush – he’d needed Hartley to tell him which was his the night before – and brushed the morning grossness away. Used the toilet and then sat down on the lid. Put his face in his hands and took a few deep breaths.

This was his life now. The remnants of it, anyway.

And it looked lovely. It looked like the life of a Cisco one-hundred-percent in love and happy. Moreover, Cisco was starting to see how that life came to be.

Hartley wasn’t the self-centered asshole Cisco remembered. He was thoughtful and kind and thought Cisco was brilliant. What he’d said the night before, about Cisco deserving recognition? That was one proud husband right there.

But it was still so bizarre to think they were married. Dating maybe. Cisco could probably handle dating and recently moved in together. But marriage just… his mind still couldn’t quite wrap around it.

Quietly, Cisco got up and padded back out to the living room to continue his perusal from the night before. Maybe he’d look for that gay dragon book that Hartley thought was so poorly written. It sounded funny.

But when he approached the bookshelves, Cisco found himself drawn to the photo of him kissing Hartley at the arboretum again.

They looked hot together. And Cisco idly wondered what Hartley tasted like when they kissed.

Blushing, Cisco turned away from the photo and looked down, a slow pleased smile appearing on his face as he realized there were several photo albums – or maybe scrap books? - on the lower shelves.

Curious, Cisco grabbed a couple and headed over to the foosball table. He dropped them on the glass surface then hopped up on a stool.

The first one was full of pictures of a much younger Hartley with his parents and a blond girl… Hartley had pointed out his sister in one of the pictures in the collage the day before and obviously this was a much younger Jerrie Rathaway. She was… a lot younger than her brother, Cisco realized. Hartley probably hadn’t been allowed to see her at all while he and his parents were estranged. But now she’d be… early college?

Cisco grimaced and wished he was better at judging age by appearance. But the girl in the collage photo definitely looked to be about eighteen or nineteen.

The grimace melted away quickly as he flipped through pages of Hartley looking happy. A fond smile took over Cisco’s face. Though in later pictures, Hartley’s own smile began to look more and more forced. Like he knew what the writing on the wall was and dreaded the inevitable. Which… that was likely exactly it.

Closing the album, Cisco slid it aside and tried the next one.

He nearly shut it again. It was pictures from Cisco’s childhood this time. Dante was on the first page, arm around Cisco’s shoulder and grinning proudly. In the background was Cisco’s science fair project. He’d won first prize.

They’d gotten along so well back then. Cisco still wasn’t sure why things went so wrong between them. But the older they got, the more Dante seemed to resent Cisco and the more Cisco felt that as much as he loved his brother… he didn’t like him much. Their parents didn’t help, favoring the more relatable Dante to their technobabbling younger son.

But… his parents had been at their wedding, according to Hartley. Did that mean Cisco’s relationship with them had improved?

Closing the second album, Cisco slid it aside as well. Third time was the charm, he hoped.

The first page had photos from what was clearly a Pride Parade. The Cisco in the first photo had on a pan pride shirt, jeans, and was covered in glitter. Which must have been a pain to wash out of his hair. They were probably finding glitter in their bed-sheets weeks later. Hartley was dressed far more daringly. Crop top rainbow shirt, booty shorts (also in rainbow), and makeup under his eyes to look like he was crying rainbows. It was fucking hot and the Cisco in the photo definitely agreed because that smirk and that gaze?

That was Cisco’s self-satisfied expression right there.

The pictures from that day took up several pages and, at some point, Hartley changed from the booty shorts to jean shorts – which, admittedly, did look more comfortable to wear – and was also basically covered in glitter.

Cisco glanced towards the bedroom, fond smile back on his face. The Pride pics somehow made it all feel more real.

After Pride, there were a handful of pictures and then nothing. Seemed like this might be their most recent pictures, then. Flipping back through, Cisco confirmed that they were wearing their wedding rings. So, 2019 Central City Pride.

Closing his eyes, Cisco tried to bring up something, anything, from that event. Nothing came to him though. He left the album open but slid it out of the way.

Putting away the first two albums, Cisco grabbed a couple more. As he started to straighten up, a thin album caught his eye and he snatched that too, only to almost drop it in surprise.

The word ‘Wedding’ was scrawled across the cover in stylized text.

Once back at the foosball table, Cisco opened up the wedding album first.

More pictures of them in their tuxes. It was an outdoor wedding in a gazebo. The crowd was small – Cisco recognized his parents and Hartley's family, Barry and Caitlin and some others from the photographs in the collage. There’s another copy of the picture of them kissing… their first kiss as a married couple.

Warmth bubbles in Cisco at that picture and he finds himself tracing along Hartley's face.

There’s pictures of the wedding cakes, red velvet and carrot cake and Cisco wonders if they argued over the carrot cake. Certainly his parents would’ve wanted Cisco to pick something more traditional, like a rum cake or an almond soaked sponge cake or just something that spoke to his Puerto Rican heritage. But Cisco fell in love with carrot cakes in college. They weren’t too sweet, but tended to have a sharper taste similar to spice cake. With shredded carrot, raisins, cranberries and whatever else got tossed in. Walnuts sometimes.

They did not smash cake in each other’s faces, which makes Cisco feel weirdly grateful. He always hated that tradition. It was a waste of perfectly delicious cake. But they did feed each other forkfuls of both cakes and Cisco…

Cisco can almost taste the cream cheese frosting on the carrot cake or the… sweeter flavor of the spongy red velvet cake.

He freezes, breathing a little harder. Is he… is he remembering something, or is this just his overactive imagination and wishful thinking?

Nothing else comes to him, just that phantom taste, and Cisco returned to perusing the pictures. The picture of their first dance makes Cisco’s mouth go dry to see the look of utter happiness on Hartley’s face as he gazes at his dance partner.

The bedroom door opened and Cisco looked over his shoulder to watch Hartley zombie walk into the kitchen and put on both the electric kettle and a pot of coffee. Then he shuffles over to Cisco and sort of slithers awkwardly onto a stool, leaning heavily on the foosball table and staring at the the photo albums with eyes that were definitely not fully awake.

Cisco resists the urge to fluff Hartley’s hair in amusement. “No coffee for you?” Cisco asks instead.

Hartley wrinkles his nose and shakes his head; he shouldn’t look so adorable, but he does. “Coffee doesn’t like me. Which is fine, I don’t like it either.” He sounds pouty as he says the words.

Unable to help himself, Cisco giggles at him.

“In all seriousness, coffee messes with my digestion. There’s some chemical in there that screws me over a few hours after I drink it. And its too early for me to remember what the most likely culprit is called. It’s a stupid, long, chemical name.” Hartley is still pouting and poking at the ends of the rods sticking out of the table, idly twirling a few. “Looking at wedding photos?”

“Yeah. I wish… I wish remembered something. Any of it. Even just a few seconds...” Cisco looks down as one of Hartley’s hands covers his own, thumb rubbing lightly over his knuckles. “What if I never remember?”

“Do you want to know what song we danced to for our first dance?” Hartley asks en lieu of answering.

“Yes.”

Hartley pats the pockets of his robe, then frowns. “Hold on.” He slides off the stool and scurries back into their bedroom. Then comes back out the guest room door with his phone. He’s fiddling with it and then sets it on the table as music begins to play.

Cisco doesn’t recognize the tune, but its catchy.

Looking nervous now, Hartley says, “its… we could dance if you wanted. I mean, its fine if you don’t...”

Cisco gets off his stool and, hesitantly, tells him, “sure. That’s… we can dance.”

They are both such awkward turtles. That’s really all Cisco can think before Hartley takes his hands and pulls him close, arms around Cisco’s waist while Cisco puts his own arms around Hartley’s shoulders. It feels familiar, yet foreign. Like everything else had since waking up on Monday.

“What’s the song called?” Cisco asked, trying to keep his gaze steady and not just stare at Hartley’s lips. Which are suddenly very close and very kissable.

Cisco is not ready for kissing.

“’Better Together’ by Jack Johnson,” Hartley replied, his own gaze very much flicking to Cisco’s lips for a moment. But he doesn’t lean in and instead they just sway together until the song ends.

Hartley retreats back to the kitchen after that, pouring tea and coffee to bring out to the foosball table. He hovers for a moment at the invisible line where the kitchen turns into the living room and then continues forward to get back on the stool he’d sat on earlier. By then Cisco was back on his stool as well.

Cisco closes the wedding album and scoots it aside, taking his coffee while Hartley reaches for the Pride album. “Oh, god, those shorts,” Hartley blushes, ducking his head a little. “I’ve had those since college and they really, really do not fit any more.”

“I bet I enjoyed the view the whole time you wore them, though,” Cisco teased, the words just slipping right out.

Hartley turned beet red. “Yeah, the wolf whistling was a dead give away. The parade was going down our street, so after about half an hour I signaled defeat and changed into something that wasn’t squeezing all the wrong places.”

Cisco wishes they could sit there all morning looking at the albums and he could listen to Hartley narrate their lives.

He doesn’t want to think too much about the grave they’ll be visiting soon.

* * *

It’s bright and sunny by the time they arrive at the graveyard and Hartley leads the way to Dante Ramon’s final resting place. Then he stands back to give Cisco space and privacy.

“He used to be my best friend,” Cisco says, voice thick with emotion. He looks over at Hartley; Cisco’s eyes looks suspiciously wet as he motions Hartley a little closer. “Did I ever tell you that?”

“Yeah. But then high school happened.”

“High school,” Cisco echoed. “He was fine with us being in the same grade all through middle school. I don’t know what changed, but suddenly… I felt like he hated me and I couldn’t figure out why. Going away to college, getting away from him was a relief. We never… we never got to have that good relationship back, so why...” he inhaled sharply, breath shaky.

Hartley stepped forward and gently took Cisco’s hand in his, only to freeze up a little and then mentally curse and hope his rigidity wasn't making it across to Cisco. Or at least that Cisco didn't realize Hartley was internally panicking. Because... that was Cisco's wedding ring Hartley could feel against his own fingers. Cisco was wearing it. Had, in fact, been wearing it all day yesterday which Hartley should've noticed but he was just so used to Cisco wearing it that...

“Did you ever get to meet him?” Cisco asked, voice steadier.

Hartley shook himself out of his thoughts. Now was not the time to be asking Cisco if him wearing the wedding ring was just habit or a reason to hope. “A couple of times, yes,” Hartley replied. “He knew about you being part of Team Flash. Leonard Snart – Captain Cold – kidnapped you and Dante at one point. He used your brother as leverage to make you build him a Cold Gun… and also to get Barry’s name from you.”

“Did I tell him?”

“To save your brother, yes. Everyone thought you made the right call, Cisco. Especially Barry. And things did work out, though Barry did get semi-blackmailed by Snart for a while.” Hartley squeezed Cisco’s hand reassuringly for a moment. “I met Dante about a year after that. Things were still pretty rocky between the two of you, but… you told him that you were a meta and he took it pretty well. He wanted to try and mend things between you two.”

“But he died. Before we could actually do that. Mend things.” Cisco’s voice had a dull cadence to it.

“I’m sorry.”

“I...” Cisco’s breath caught and he swayed. “I was the one who… my parents were out of town. Weren’t they? I was the one who… who had to identify the… who had to identify him.” He turned and pressed his face against Hartley’s chest.

Automatically, Hartley put his arms around his husband, one hand rubbing Cisco’s back while the other threaded through Cisco’s long hair, petting lightly.

“Fuck. Why did that have to be… why couldn’t the first thing I remembered be our first date or first kiss or our wedding or just… something nice. Why did it have to be Dante on… in a… in the damn morgue?”

Hartley rocked them back and forth gently, nuzzling the top of Cisco’s head with his cheek.

“Take me home,” Cisco whispered. “Please… just… take me home.”

* * *

Caitlin showed up at lunch time with food in tow. “I brought Pei Wei,” she said brightly. “Who’s hungry?”

“Starving,” Hartley said, giving her a quick hug and then helping to unpack the food on the kitchen island.

Cisco meandered over slower, still feeling rung out from earlier. He leaned against her shoulder listlessly and Caitlin complied with the unspoken request for a hug.

“How are you doing? Hartley said you remembered something while at the graveyard.”

“Dante’s death,” Cisco muttered shortly, not wanting to talk about it.

How he remembered the morgue drawer opening and the sheet being pulled back. Confirming that was his brother lying dead there… and it wasn’t the first time he’d seen his brother dead, there’d been a flash of Dante, yet not really Dante, being killed on camera and Cisco wanting desperately to return to STAR Labs because Dante was there and alive and… and now he was dead in a drawer in a wall.

(Dead in a hole in the ground.)

Barry had rubbed Cisco’s back while he’d thrown up in the bathroom down the hall from the morgue. That was where his memories had cut off.

Not Cisco’s first choice for getting his memories back, nor his first choice for remembering someone who was, apparently, now one of his best friends.

“I’m so sorry, Cisco.”

He’s so tired of hearing that. So he doesn’t respond, he just cuddles closer.

* * *

As soon as Cisco disappears into the bathroom after lunch, Hartley turns to Caitlin and raises an eyebrow.

“You haven’t told him about Frost yet, have you.” It’s not a question. He knows the answer already.

Caitlin shrugged. “He’ll remember for himself soon enough. Barry said the other victims of the meta have gotten their lost memories back.”

“But they weren’t also metas and they lost a couple of hours at most,” Hartley responded. “What happens if Cisco remembers how badly we all reacted to Frost first, or the things our bad reactions pushed her towards doing. He deserves to hear about her – to meet her – as she is now so that he’ll know that despite how rocky things were at first, Frost’s our friend now and that we trust her.”

When Caitlin doesn’t respond, Hartley asks, “what does Frost think about being kept hidden?”

“She’s not happy about it, but she’s accepted it for now. We don’t want him to react badly to her,” Caitlin muttered, petulant and defensive.

“He’ll react badly if you don’t talk to him first. Secrets between teammates and friends are bad, Caitlin. Barry and Oliver have both proven that to be true time and again.” Not to mention the last time Caitlin tried keeping Frost a secret, but Hartley’s learned enough self restraint not to rub that in.

“I’m scared,” she admitted softly. “He’s changed so much over the years, I want to give him a chance to be… lighter, carefree again.”

“But that’s not whats happening. He’s angry and frustrated and being shown a life where he became a super hero and fell in love and got married, but there’s no context for any of it. And now he remembers finding out about Dante’s death and grieving for his brother like it just happened all over again. This isn’t a chance for him to be lighter or carefree, Caitlin. And if you think he hasn’t noticed you’re keeping things from him, then you’re very, very wrong. Cisco deserves to be trusted and Frost deserves better than to be kept a secret.” Hartley paused a beat. “I won’t tell him for now, but only because I think you should.”

And then Cisco was coming out of the bathroom, smelling faintly of the eucalyptus foam soap they keep by the sink. He settled back onto the couch between Hartley and Caitlin and then… he actually leaned against Hartley. Snuggled against him like it was perfectly normal.

Nearly any other day it would’ve been normal. But today? Today Hartley’s almost afraid to breathe for fear of startling Cisco away like a frightened rabbit. Even with how Cisco accepted Hartley’s comfort earlier at the graveyard, accepted little touches from Hartley here and there… the hug the night before. Every little move they’ve made towards what they had before makes Hartley as skittish as Cisco is, each afraid of making the wrong move.

Hesitantly, Hartley puts an arm around Cisco’s shoulders. Time seems to stand still for a few seconds as they both freeze. Then Cisco relaxes and so does Hartley.

They’re going to be okay. Somehow. Hartley’s almost starting to believe it too.

Caitlin leaned back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment and, given the soft snort of amusement she made after a moment, Hartley guessed she was chatting with Frost. Eventually she sat back up straight and said, “Cisco, there’s something I should tell you, but its kind of hard to know where to begin. But, as Hartley pointed out to me, it’s better I tell you now before you remember something that, without context, could be kind of… unfortunate.”

Cisco frowned, but nodded. “Okay, well… take your time.”

She sighed and then said, “so I didn’t become a meta when the accelerator blew, even though both you and Ronnie did. Given my proximity to the blast and all the dark matter and energy released by the accelerator, I probably would have become a meta then… if it weren’t for the fact that I already was one. I just didn’t know it yet. Or… I didn’t remember because I’d suppressed the memories. See… my father he… he had ALS. He didn’t find out until after I was born and when he realized I’d inherited the genes that cause that condition… he became obsessed with finding a cure for both of us.

“And he did find a cure. But it came at a cost. The cryogenic technology he pioneered cured the ALS but it also gave us ice based powers… and secondary personalities. Multiple personality disorder, sort of.” Caitlin took a deep breath and let her other self take over.

Her hair went white and her eyes an icy blue. “My name is Frost. I’m that other personality the treatment created.” She held out a hand to Cisco who pulled away from Hartley as he reached over to shake her hand.

“Uh, hi. Oh, wow, you even sound different. It’s… nice to meet you? For the second time, I guess.” Cisco sounded nervous, but weirdly pleased.

“This first meeting is going a lot better than the last one,” Frost said, sounding rather pleased about it herself. “Caitlin was worried you’d freak.”

“Well, I am a little freaked out, but more because its so unexpected. Were you unaware all those years while Caitlin was suppressing you and your powers or… and I’m pushing, aren’t I? Just ignore the question.” Cisco leaned back against Hartley again. “Sorry.”

“No, its fine. It was like I was sleeping the whole time.” Frost shrugged. “Caitlin fell off her bike not long after the experiments on her were completed, caught her leg in the bike wheel, and nearly got hit by a car. That triggered her powers to manifest for the first time, for the enhanced healing we get, but she freaked out when she saw her reflection. She ended up suppressing the whole thing, and me with it. So the first real memories I have are when I started manifesting after Zoom kidnapped and traumatized her. By then you’d all met the Earth-2 version of me and expected me to be evil. Which… I hadn’t learned things like ethics or empthy yet, so arguably I kind of was. I was angry all the time because Caitlin wouldn’t let herself be angry and the whole thing...”

“Snowballed?” Hartley offered helpfully with a little smirk on his face.

“It’s like you want to slip and fall on an unexpected ice patch,” Frost grumbled. “Shut up, Hartley. Screw you.”

He snickered.

“Fine, yes, it snowballed and I did some things I’m not proud of. But… you and Caitlin’s mom came up with something that was supposed to suppress me permanently and instead of just… instead of just forcing it on us, you gave it to me. Cisco, you handed me that cure and told me I had a choice and… I realized I didn’t want to be the bad guy. And I didn’t want to disappear. So Caitlin and I figured our shit out. Took us a while, but having friends grew on me and… though I swear to god if Ralph calls me his bro one more time, I’m stabbing him in the face.”

“That’d be more of a threat if stabbing him in face actually caused him harm,” Hartley muttered.

“I can stab you,” Frost pouted.

“Just admit it, you like having Ralph around. The baby giraffe is your friend now.”

Frost snickered. “You haven’t actually called him that to his face, have you?”

“Sherloque made me promise to keep up the nickname in his honor before leaving,” Hartley said. “So, yes, I have, and he threw wadded up pieces of paper at my face in retaliation.”

“You deserved it.” Frost laughed, though.

“Probably. Ralph’s about six foot four,” Hartley added to Cisco. “So, you know, very, very tall. And he doesn’t mind taking a joke since he gives as good as he gets.” And Hartley was now thinking that he really ought to call Ralph to let he know what was going on back at the ranch, as it were.

Cisco smiled uncertainly. “Ralph sounds like a nice guy from what I’ve heard so far. Sherlock - Sherloque? - was one of Dr. Wells dopplegangers from Earth-whatever, right?”

“Yeah. He either had a really crappy fake French accent or French was a more dominant language in North America on his Earth and thus he had an authentic accent that just sounds like a crappy fake French accent.” Hartley was pretty sure it was a fake accent. There’d been a few times where the guy’s accent would clearly slip into something very American sounding.

“That’s just so weird,” Cisco sighed and shifted a little closer to Hartley. “I mean, meta humans, alternate personalities, you and me being married… it’s all weird, but totally in the realm of possible. But alternate earths? Parallel dimensions? I know scientifically the theories behind it are sound, but I just… cannot wrap my brain around it yet.”

“Time travel, too. Can’t forget the time travel,” Frost pointed out. Hartley tossed a pillow at her and Caitlin caught it.

“Hey,” the brunette complained, wrapping her arms around the pillow. “So… you’re okay with Frost, though… right?” she looked nervous, so Cisco leaned forward to hug her.

“Yeah, I’m cool with Frost.”

“I need friends who don’t make awful puns,” Caitlin grumbled.

* * *

“So, what movie are we watching?” Cisco asked, dropping onto Barry’s couch. Iris had dragged Hartley off almost the moment they’d arrived, something about helping her with an article about Freespace’s youth shelter’s changing policies.

Cisco was pretty sure that at least half of what Iris was saying was just an excuse to let Cisco and Barry hang out together and get to know each other as best friends again. Which was nice of her. And the bemused look on Hartley's face said pretty clearly he knew what was really up and going along with it anyway.

“Well, _Wrath of Khan_ is always a favorite, but I figured you’d pick.” Barry plopped on to the couch next to him and turned on the tv. “We could get you caught up on MCU movies you don’t remember?”

“I could go for some _Khan_, actually.” Cisco sighed theatrically, “it’ll be nice to see something familiar, anyway.”

“How are you doing? I mean, if you want to talk about it? I do have some minor experience with amnesia and waking up to find that way too much time has passed and everything’s different.” Barry offered, absently opening up a plex app.

“Yeah, Hartley mentioned that. He said you were in a nine month coma once and… briefly lost all your memories? You wanted to be called Bart.”

“Oh, come on, we all promised never to speak of that name again,” Barry groused, though a smile tugged at his lips. “But, yeah, that’s all true. The amnesia thing wasn’t so bad, but the coma? I missed Christmas and my birthday… it took me, like, two years to finally start getting my own age right again.”

“That sucks… oh.” Cisco’s eyes widened as something that probably should’ve occurred to him earlier finally dawned on him. “Holy shit, I’m thirty.”

Barry giggled.

“You’re not helping. I’m thirty years old. When the hell did that happen?”

“Last April,” Barry responded dryly.

Cisco laughed a little too. “Thirty,” he repeated, feeling so weird about it. “How old is Hartley?”

“Uh… also thirty, though his birthday is in November. I think you’ve got a reminder on google calendar, though.” Barry laughed again as Cisco dove for his phone on the table.

“November twenty-second,” Cisco muttered once he checked the phone.

“Have you remembered anything yet?”

“Identifying Dante at the morgue,” Cisco replied, voice a touch flat. “I’ve had impressions of stuff that I’m pretty sure are memories that I can’t quite remember and not, ya know, my powers trying to kick back in. But… I keep looking at pictures of the life Hartley and I’ve had together and… I can’t even remember what kissing him is like.”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “Well, I hear there’s a surefire way to find out what kissing him is like.”

Cisco rolled his eyes. “Yes, I could kiss him, but I don’t… I don’t want to lead him on or hurt him,” he flushed slightly and looked down. “The me in those pictures was in love with him. I know how sappy I look when I’m in love. But I’m not in love with him right now. I want to be. I want that life back. But right now… if I kiss him...” Cisco swallowed hard. “It doesn’t help that I’m constantly leaning into his touch, reaching out to him for support… its all so familiar that I’m doing it without even thinking about it. What if I never...” he choked off the question. What if he never felt that way about Hartley again? What if losing his memories ruined their relationship, their marriage? It was still so weird to think that they were married…

“The last thing I want is to hurt Hartley worse than I already am,” Cisco finally said.

Putting a hand on Cisco’s shoulder, Barry squeezed lightly. “You might be overthinking things a little, but… I think being so concerned about Hartley is a good sign. You may not be in love with him, but you already care a lot don’t you?”

Cisco nodded slowly. Because… he did. “Has there been any news about the meta who did this to me?”

“Not yet. But Wally’s on his way back from Tibet to help me catch him, so hopefully we’ll get some answers about this guy’s powers soon.” Barry looked a lot more hopeful than Cisco felt. “Maybe we’ll figure out a way to reverse what he did and you won’t have to wait for your memories to trickle back one at a time.”

“Maybe,” Cisco replied noncommittally. “Movie?”

“Right.” Barry navigated the menus and then selected _Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan_ off the list. “So, its cool if you don’t want to, but this is basically the movie we were watching when we decided we were best friends so we usually say the ‘I have been, and always shall be, your friend’ line along with Spock and do the Vulcan salute. But, like, I know you don’t remember me so if that’s not something you want to do… I just want you to be able to choose either way, okay?”

“Actually, that sounds awesome.” Cisco grinned. He might not be up to something like kissing Hartley yet, but… Cisco remembered Barry being there for him that day at the morgue. Remembered the strong feeling of relief at having his best friend there to support him.

He might not be able to think of Barry as one of his best friends yet, but it was easy to believe he would feel that way again soon enough. So he was definitely up for a Vulcan salute and pledging to be Barry’s friend.

If only he felt this sort of certainty about his relationship with Hartley…

* * *

“How are you holding up?” Iris asked once they got into the car.

“I am terrified of doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing. I’m afraid that if I’m too affectionate he’ll startle away and if I give into my frustration I risk starting a fight and...” Hartley took off his glasses with one hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the other. “I’m so stressed. And I know he is to, but I... I don’t even know what he really wants. Like… is he going along with staying with me because he wants to try and make things work between us or because its convenient and he doesn’t feel like he has anywhere else to go.”

Iris is quiet for a long moment, clearly unsure how to respond to any of that. Finally, she told him, “my questions about Freespace will take maybe ten minutes and we could have done it at the apartment, as I’m sure you guessed, but I figured you could use some space to vent. So, after we’ve stopped by my office and you’ve answered everything, what do you want to do? Go get a drink at a bar? Go see a late night movie at the theater? Barnes and Noble is open until nine, we can go wander the stacks and make fun of the back cover blurbs for the romance novels?”

“That last one sounds fun,” Hartley said, smiling a touch wanly. “We can get some lattes and have a contest over who finds the most outrageous looking Fabio type on a cover?”

“And the most ridiculous blurb,” Iris agreed with a grin. “The last time I went wandering through the romance section of a bookstore I found one I swear was basically Flash fanfiction with the names changed.”

“Oooh, do tell,” Hartley said, “did you get it?”

“Yup, practically obligated to buy it. I read the whole thing out loud to Barry at night over a week. He was utterly mortified by the whole thing. I’ll lend it to you if you want.”

“Very much, yes.” Hartley snickered and felt himself relax. “What does the cover look like?”

“Dude in a pale blue ‘flash’ suit, but half undressed and the cowl still on. Ridiculously ripped abs, like ridiculously dehydrated body-builder and not pleasantly washboard. And if the zipper on that suit went any lower...” Iris made a little pleased noise while waggling her eyebrows outrageously and Hartley cracked up, just imagining what the book looked like.

“Please tell me the sex scenes aren’t as awful as the gay dragon book,” Hartley begged. He'd complained about it to her before, so she knew exactly what book he was talking about. “Anatomically impossible things were happening there. Things that not even fanfiction writers who don’t understand how a penis works would write.”

“Okay, I’ve got to borrow that gay dragon book,” Iris insisted with a laugh.

“Ugh, you can keep it.” Though she couldn’t, not really. Cisco would be annoyed… if he ever remembered giggling over how terrible the book was, that is.

“Right, so book swap the next time we see each other,” Iris continued. “I will read that gay dragon book to Barry so that he might share in your horror of it.”

“I pity him, but that won’t stop me from lending you the book.”

“Good.”

“Anyway, the not-really-the-Flash romance novel has some major speculation on using the ability to vibrate in bed. Some of it? Really not advised. Some of it is very spot on though, so the writer gets props for having a surprisingly accurate, and very dirty, imagination.” Iris had the biggest smirk on her face.

“You’re so smug right now, its ridiculous.” Hartley relaxed even further, leaning back into his seat. “Thanks, Iris. Already I can tell, I needed this.”

“Glad to help,” she replied sincerely. “Any time.”

* * *

Thursday morning Cisco woke with his face pressed against Hartley’s chest, the sound of a heartbeat in his ears. It was soothing.

In fact, the sound of Hartley’s heartbeat was threatening to lull Cisco back to sleep. But he really needed to pee, so…

Reluctantly Cisco rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. When he padded back out, Hartley was sitting up in bed, looking around blearily. “’s too early,” the blond grumbled.

Hartley was cute when he was sleepy and grumpy and disheveled looking from his bed head. Cisco blushed a little, his chest getting all fluttery. He wanted very much to kiss this man.

“Go back to sleep, Hart,” Cisco told him, the nickname just sliding out like it was natural.

Frowning, Hartley nodded and flopped back down, eyes already half-lidded again as Cisco slid back under the covers. But unlike Hartley, Cisco propped himself up and grabbed the book he’d started reading the other night.

“Not gonna sleep too?” Hartley asked, cuddling close.

“Nope. Too awake already,” Cisco told him. Then, on a whim, he started running his fingers through Hartley’s hair, letting his nails ever so lightly scratch Hartley's scalp.

The other man practically purred as his eyes slipped shut and his breathing evened back out into sleep.

They’d done this before, Cisco realized. Easy early mornings where Hartley dozed and Cisco read. He couldn’t remember a specific time they’d done it, but the certainty was there and strong.

Sometimes a morning like this turned into lazy sex, messy kisses while beneath they made other sorts of messes, and the scattered impressions of memory rose up to take Cisco’s breath away and make his mouth go dry with want.

He hated that he couldn’t fully remember. He’d seen Hartley shirtless the night before, but what did Hartley’s chest feel like under Cisco’s hands? What did he look like completely naked? What did he taste like when they kissed, when Cisco went down on his knees and…

Groaning softly at the bloom of arousal, Cisco set aside his book and picked up his phone. He googled ‘Vibe Piper super hero kiss’ and found several articles about the gay heroes of Central City. The first one he tapped had several pictures. Hartley laying on the ground as Cisco rushed over, Cisco clearly checking Hartley for injuries, Cisco cupping Hartley’s cheek beneath the hooded part of the Piper uniform… the two of them kissing urgently.

Hartley had been hurt. That was obvious from the pictures, but suddenly Cisco could feel the terror he must have felt that day. Hartley had been knocked down and Cisco had been frightened that he’d been… stabbed?

Whatever it was that Cisco was remembering faded as he tried to concentrate on it, slipping away from him and leaving him staring at his phone vacantly.

He sighed and set the phone aside. At least the terror from that almost remembered memory had killed Cisco’s arousal.

Picking up the book from the nightstand again, Cisco finally began to read.

* * *

“Last night I finally realized I’m thirty,” Cisco declared, like it was a tragedy.

Which, considering from Cisco’s point of view he’d basically jumped from twenty-four to thirty overnight, it probably felt that way to him.

“So am I. It’s terrible. Small children will believe we grew up when dinosaurs roamed the Earth,” Hartley snarked as he flipped the pancakes and poked at the veggie ‘sausages’ sizzling on the other pan. He was waiting until after Cisco ate some before admitting there was no meat in them; Cisco had made a fuss about them probably tasting awful the first time Hartley bought them and then Cisco had proceeded to eat more of them then Hartley did, much to Hartley’s simultaneous irritation and amusement.

Better to just serve the food first so Cisco would know he liked it and then go ‘and by the way, its not exactly what you thought it was.’

“Funny,” Cisco grumbled.

“Just remember, we’re still way too young for things like midlife crises, so hold off on buying that expensive Tesla for another ten years, okay?”

Cisco actually laughed for Hartley this time. “I’m holding you to that. Ten years, we’re getting a Tesla.”

And then they both froze, staring at each other because… that implied they’d still be together in ten years. That Cisco still wanted to be with Hartley ten years down the road.

“Breakfast is almost ready,” Hartley said, turning back to the stove before he burned something.

The silence was almost oppressive as Hartley finished their food and put it out on the breakfast bar of the island.

As Hartley seated himself, Cisco said, “I want to make things work. With us. I want to try. Can we, I dunno… start small? Go on a date. Dinner and a movie or just... something fun that gets us out of the apartment together?”

Hartley wants to kiss him so badly. Wants to brush Cisco’s hair away from his face and kiss along his jaw and the corner of his mouth and nibble along his lower lip. There’s just so much joy in Hartley all of a sudden and he wants desperately to show it with kisses.

Instead he smiles, unsteady and hopeful, and says, “yeah. I would love to go on a date with you.”

Cisco grinned back. “You’ve got to help me plan or I’ll overthink the whole thing. Like… when do we want to go on this date? Tonight? Tomorrow? This weekend?”

“If we go tomorrow, it’ll have to be either before or after my therapy appointment. It’s at one.”

“Maybe I should start therapy,” Cisco sighed. “I could probably use the help right now.”

“You’ve actually been in therapy before,” Hartley told him. “You did some group therapy after Dante died and some one on one therapy after Barry was pulled into the speed force about two years ago. That lasted for about… five months – the therapy, not Barry being stuck in the speed force, he was there for three months – and you liked her a lot.” Hartley closed his eyes, trying to remember the therapist’s name. “Dr. Sheryl Dincht, I think. I don’t know if she’s still in practice here in Central City, but if you seriously want to see if it helps then she’d be the one to start with.”

“I’ll see if I’ve got her contact information in my phone somewhere,” Cisco decided slowly. “After breakfast.” He took a bite of the veggie sausage and made a ‘yum’ noise before switching back to the jam covered pancakes. “This is all really delicious, Hartley.”

“Thanks.” Hartley paused a beat and had what he hoped was a good idea. “Um… for our date, maybe… there’s a painting with a twist place down the block from here that just opened up a few weeks ago. We’ve been wanting to go – we’ve never actually been to one of those places before – but we haven’t found the time for it yet… so it’d be new for both of us.”

“Painting with a twist… that’s where we can bring our own booze to drink while taking an art class, right?” Cisco looked thoughtful.

“Yup. Its popular, so that may have be something we book more than a day or two in advance.” Hartley tapped his right fingers along his leg nervously, playing chords and scales and arpeggios on a non-existent keyboard.

“What’s the name of the place?”

“Wine Barrel Art Barn. They’re right next to a wine bar… actually, I think the wine bar may own the studio.”

“Oooh, sneaky. Get people to buy their wine at the bar before class or maybe after the class is over and the wine they did bring is gone they’ll go have another glass or two next door...” Cisco grinned impishly. “I approve of their marketing decisions.”

Hartley laughed, his hands stilling as he unwound a little.

“I also really like that this’ll be new for us both. That’s… its really sweet.” Cisco smiled at Hartley and…

Hartley’s breath caught in his throat. Cisco had only started looking at Hartley like that when they began dating.

* * *

Hartley seems more cheerful after Cisco’s suggestion of a date which makes him feel all warm and fuzzy to see.

Maybe Barry had a point about Cisco overthinking things. His memories weren’t really gone, just… mostly unreachable. So it stood to reason that his feelings for Hartley weren’t gone either. They were simply difficult to access.

Going on a date seemed like a relatively safe step forward. And maybe by then he wouldn’t be so afraid that kissing Hartley would be like making a promise Cisco couldn’t keep.

After calling Dr. Dincht, whose number was still in Cisco’s phone after all, and explaining the situation, Cisco had an appointment for the following week. The idea of going to therapy made Cisco feel all nervous and clammy. He knew logically that therapy was a good thing. When you got physically ill, you saw a doctor. When you were feeling mentally unwell, then the healthy choice was to go seek out help for that too. But Cisco could still feel what he was certain was internalized ableism clawing around in his head.

It helped, though, knowing he’d seen her before. Even though Cisco couldn’t remember her, she’d clearly remembered him. And she seemed very pleasant, asked how Hartley was doing and thanking him again for letting her know he’d only faked his death as Vibe the year before.

Which… that was the first Cisco had heard about faking his death, so that was something he’d need to ask about later.

But once his appointment was settled, Cisco joined Hartley on the couch with a laptop and together they looked up the Wine Barrel Art Barn.

“Oh, classes on painting Hedwig,” Cisco enthused once they pulled up the class schedule. “And they’ve still got space open on Saturday.”

“Sweet,” Hartley grinned, leaning against Cisco’s shoulder. And didn’t that feel nice?

Cisco went to make a reservation and had to get off the couch because he hadn’t grabbed his wallet. And then, as he was pulling out a card to use to reserve slots for both of them, he saw the chip on the card. “Shit. I don’t know my pin number.”

“It’s written down with our credit card information in the filing cabinet in our guest room,” Hartley told him. “Want me to go find it?”

Huffing softly, Cisco shook his head. “Let’s do that this afternoon, maybe? I need to relearn pretty much all our finance stuff, don’t I? Banking accounts, credit card accounts, pin numbers… do we use my old bank or...” Cisco shook his head. “Later. For now lets just make this reservation.”

“Okay. Let’s see if we even need the pin number for this site; odds are all it’ll need is that three-digit number on the back.” They checked and it turned out Hartley was right. No pin number necessary.

Though if Cisco wanted to use that card for groceries or lunch at a sandwich shop or something, he was definitely going to need that pin number.

“Okay, so… we walk over to the wine bar, buy a bottle of wine to split during the class, and then afterwards we can pick one of the restaurants in the area for dinner, and then walk back home,” Cisco said, summing up their itinerary for Saturday afternoon and evening.

“Sounds fun,” Hartley declared warmly, grinning at Cisco.

* * *

Going over their financials – and also things like their accounts for various utilities, their phone and internet services (no cable, just streaming services… and maybe a little piracy on occasion), and various other important documents – reminded Hartley that they probably ought to let Cisco’s parents know what was going on.

“They don’t know about us moonlighting as superheroes or anything like that, but after Dante died, you all made an effort to mend bridges. So we really ought to go see them and let them know what happened. Well, mostly what happened with some facts fudged.” Hartley shrugged, a touch helplessly, because he liked Sofia and Mateo Ramon. He hated the idea of lying to them. They’d approved of him dating Cisco after meeting him twice; Hartley had never gotten parental approval before.

They even still liked him despite his father’s rather racist comments at Hartley and Cisco’s wedding. (Hartley had been so grateful that they hadn’t held Osgood’s ignorant words against Hartley. Though it may have helped that Hartley had threatened to kick Osgood out of the reception hall if he didn’t apologize immediately and mind his words. Hartley’d nearly kicked his father out despite the apology he gave Sofia and Mateo, but Cisco’s hand on his shoulder and murmured ‘let Rachel handle him’ had calmed his temper. Certainly Rachel had taken her husband to task afterwards and he barely said a word the rest of the evening.)

“Where’d I get attacked by the meta anyway?”

“Jewelry store,” Hartley replied.

“Do you like jewelry?” Cisco asked curiously. “I mean, the easiest thing to say is that I was there looking for an anniversary present when the meta showed up to rob the store and I had a bad reaction to their powers compared to everyone else.”

“That’s… not a bad cover story,” Hartley agreed. “I’m not really much of a jewelry person, which your parents know. But I’ve… I’ve got a pair of cuff-links from my grandfather. I never wear them but they’re very sentimental… but one of them is missing a stone.”

“So I was checking to see if they do jewelry repair, to get them fixed up as a gift,” Cisco decided. “Which we know because I told Caitlin to distract you while I went to check out a few different stores.”

“Much better cover story. And can I just say? I hate lying to your parents,” Hartley admitted. “They’re a lot nicer than my parents. They like me.”

“Sorry.” Cisco runs his hand over Hartley's arm reassuringly, consequently making Hartley hyper aware of being touched. “Can I see those cuff-links?”

“Yeah, of course. Here, you should relearn our safe code anyway,” Hartley stood up and led Cisco to a medium sized fireproof safe in the guest room closet. He tapped in the code – eight digits long and he’d probably have to remind Cisco later since the other man was already having to re-memorize his pin numbers for his banking and credit cards – and then pointed to a couple of the documents they kept in there. “Both our social security cards and birth certificates are in the bottom compartment along with… with our wills, actually. We made new ones after our honeymoon was over.” Seemed like a kind of morbid thing to bring up, but it had been a practical decision at the time. “A few other documents in there too.

“Top compartment is where the cuff-links are, and a couple of other things too.”

Cisco perked up, recognizing a few items right off the bat as Hartley opened the compartment. “My Abuela gave me this before she passed away,” he murmured, picking up a necklace with a rather delicate looking rose pendant – made with actual rubies – and staring at it with a smile. “She told me to give it to my wife on our wedding day. She wanted to keep it in the family, but with no granddaughters… I’m glad I still have it, but I’m a little surprised I haven’t given it to Caitlin. She basically counts as my sister at this point, yeah?”

“You’ve actually loaned it to her a few times, but...” Hartley hesitated. This was getting into heavier things than he was sure they ought to be talking about just yet.

“But what?”

“… okay, so this seems unrelated, but its not. We’ve, um… we’ve been thinking of getting a pet. A dog maybe, or a cat. I’ve been voting for a rat, but you want something snugglier. But, uh, the point is that if we can manage to take care of some kind of… fur baby, then we’d start thinking about the possibility of adopting kids and whether that’s something we even want. You’ve been hanging on to the necklace in case we do adopt kids.”

“Oh,” and doesn’t Cisco look wide eyed. “That’s… oh.” He put the necklace back. “That makes sense.”

Hartley has no idea if those are good ‘ohs’ or bad ‘ohs’. So instead he pulls out the little box with his grandfather’s cuff-links and shows them to Cisco. Emerald and diamond on one, but the diamond was missing on the other. “It’s been missing the diamond since before I was given them. Always intended to have it replaced with something diamond-looking after college, but kept putting it off. Couldn’t afford it after my parents disowned me. Forgot about it once I started working at STAR Labs because it wasn’t like I needed cuff-links for any reason. Nearly pawned them to pay for my original piper gear before I decided to just steal what I needed instead. I just couldn’t bear to let them go.”

Cisco takes the box and looks over the cuff-links. “Green’s your color,” he murmured absently, closing the box and setting it back inside the safe. “Your first set of Piper gloves were booby trapped to go off if they weren’t deactivated properly,” he said suddenly. “That was what you stole the parts to make.”

“Yes… what else can you… tell me about those gloves?” Hartley felt hope in his chest. Cisco was clearly remembering something all on his own. Something that wasn’t awful like Dante’s death, either… though arguably not the greatest memories of Hartley Cisco could be recalling.

“You wrecked them getting rid of the time wraith.” Cisco shivered and jerked, blinking like he was coming out of a daze. “You deliberately set off the trap in order to get rid of that dementor wanna-be. I remember.” Cisco grinned and threw his arms around Hartley's shoulders to hug him before bouncing away, utterly ecstatic. “Ugh, that thing was creepy, but I remembered it all on my own.”

“We should celebrate with some _Good Omens_ episodes.” Hartley paused a beat and then added, “and maybe some cuddling on the couch?”

“Yes! Yes we should. Both the show and the, uh, cuddling.” Cisco blushed a little, ducking his head. “I really like cuddling.”

Hartley grinned. He knew very well how much Cisco liked to cuddle. Probably the only thing Cisco liked more than a good cuddle was a nice, long, languid kiss.

Too bad they weren’t up to kissing quite yet.

* * *

The next morning, Hartley and Cisco wake to a phone call from Caitlin. Barry, Wally, and Frost have captured the meta who took Cisco’s memories. They have not taken him to the police, however. Because he’s maybe fifteen and scared because his abusive father is holding his kid brother hostage.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the kid says, crying when he sees Cisco. There are bracelets on the teen’s wrists glowing blue. Power dampeners, Cisco’s design… and he can’t even remember creating them.

But its hard to be angry when the kid is crying like that.

“You don’t know how to restore my memories, do you?” Cisco might not be angry, but he’s still upset. So he doesn’t offer the kid forgiveness. Not right now anyway.

The kid shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I only know how to mask memories, not bring them back. Thought I did the same to you that I did to the others. Just enough to take a couple of hours and knock you out. Didn’t know it’d affect you differently.”

Cisco swallows down on the urge to yell at the kid. _I’ve got a husband I don’t remember marrying and its because of you._ But he keeps the words locked away. Instead he just turns and walks out into the hallway, Hartley a few steps behind him. Barry and Caitlin join him outside the cortex as well, while the other speedster – presumably Wally West, Barry’s brother-in-law – stays with the teen in the other room.

“I don’t want him to try to undo what he did,” Cisco says immediately. “I don’t want to risk making this worse, losing the last couple of days and what little I have started to remember, and potentially losing even more years than are already repressed.”

“I’m sorry,” Barry offers. “I really hoped...”

“I know. I did too.” Cisco leaned into Hartley’s touch on his back, the silent support of Cisco’s decision not to even bother asking the kid to fix things.

“Are you going to take him to the CCPD?” Hartley asked.

Barry nodded. “I’m taking him there as the Flash; Cecile is already coming up with a deal for Jimmy since he was coerced into committing these crimes by his father. Joe’s getting things set up to go rescue the little brother.”

“What’ll happen to… Jimmy?” Cisco hadn’t really been paying much attention to the kids name earlier. He glanced back, over his shoulder and past Hartley, to look at the teen in the other room. Not even a single spark of recognition or flash of memory to tell him how the kid’s powers even worked.

“He may spend some time in Juvie. I’m not really sure what Cecile’s come up with yet.”

“He’s just some scared kid,” Cisco sighed and shook his head.

“Have you offered him the cure yet?” Hartley asked.

“No. And we need to come up with a better name for that.” Caitlin didn’t sound happy at all.

“What’s the cure?” Cisco thought it sounded familiar, but he wasn’t sure why.

“It’s a drug that fully removes the affects of dark energy on a meta human, rendering them completely depowered and even reversing genetic mutations caused by that energy,” Hartley said. “We developed it last year. I considered using it because, like I mentioned, my hearing is often painful. But odds are that without my enhanced hearing, I’d be nearly completely deaf. So I opted not to use it after all.”

“_I like the sound of your voice too much to risk being unable to hear you.”_

Cisco sucked in a startled breath because he almost thought Hartley actually said that last part just then. But, no, that was a memory. No real context beyond… Hartley was kind of a sap about his reasons for not taking the cure.

And the reason Cisco couldn’t remember the context was standing in the other room and even though Cisco pitied that kid, he was still…

Oh, he was angry after all. Fucking furious, actually. Shit.

“I’m going back to the car,” Cisco says and then just heads straight for the elevator.

Hartley and Caitlin exchange a few more words – presumably arguing about offering the cure to a minor – but Hartley’s steps behind Cisco getting into the elevator once the doors open.

“Cisco, are you...”

“I’m not okay,” Cisco cut him off. “I’m really, really not okay. And in a shitty mood. And I don’t want to talk about it yet because I’ll probably start a fight to take my mind off this and I don’t… I don’t want to fight with you.”

Hartley nodded and reached out, offering to hold Cisco’s hand. So Cisco lets Hartley slide their fingers together and… that turns out to be just that little bit too much after all. Cisco starts crying for everything he’s lost and trying to put back together and…

He’s falling apart at the seams, but Hartley’s arms pull Cisco close as though he might be able to keep Cisco from shattering altogether.

* * *

Friday was pretty much a wash after meeting the kid that took Cisco’s memories. They go home and curl up on the couch and binge watch the next two episodes of _Good Omens_. Then Hartley has his therapy appointment after lunch. He comes back feeling even more emotionally wrung out then he did after seeing the kid who hurt Cisco and winds up curled up on the couch while Cisco takes the over-sized side chair (which twirls, one of the best things about it).

They don’t really talk much, letting the _Carmen Sandiego_ reboot fill the air with noise. It’s a good show, actually, but Hartley can’t concentrate on it. At some point he ends up falling asleep.

He wakes up to Cisco shaking his shoulder. “Dinner time, Hartley. Do you want pizza?”

“Yeah, sure, there’s a place...” Hartley yawns and sits up and nearly lists over to the other side before righting himself. “There’s a place a few blocks from here we usually order from. Should be a menu for it in the drawer on the side of the island.”

Cisco goes and checks, finding Charlie’s Pizzeria's menu. “Anything specific you want?”

“No pineapple, I’m allergic,” Hartley answered, rubbing a hand over his face and massaging the bridge his nose. Then he has to fix the nose-pads on his glasses because he smushed them a little in his sleep. “Their cheesecake is amazing and after how today went, I think we each deserve a slice.”

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed. He placed an order for a matador pizza – slightly spicy meat and veggie that Hartley usually enjoyed – and the cheesecake slices, and then dropped back onto the chair, letting it spin slowly. “I hate this,” he said quietly. “I hate not being able to remember and having to do this the slow way and that… I want to hate that kid so much for doing this to me, but then I think about his brother and I just… Why can’t this be simple?”

“Cisco,” Hartley said, a touch helplessly.

“And you. I feel like just a week ago I hated you and never wanted to see you again, but at the same time I know a week ago we were kissing and cuddling like it was the most natural thing in the world. There’s this dissonance in my head and I keep… I keep thinking you deserve better than this. You’re hurting because of me and I… I don’t know how long its going to take to get my head on straight. You’re being so fucking patient and I don’t understand why...”

Hartley moved to the arm of the chair and cupped Cisco’s face with one hand, silencing the sudden torrent of words. He stroked Cisco’s cheek his his thumb and waited until Cisco was gazing up at him. “The reason why I am being patient, why I will do everything I can to support you, is very simple,” Hartley told him quietly. “I love you, Cisco Ramon. I love you and you are worth waiting for.”

Cisco sucked in a sharp breath, looking a little lost and a bit teary eyed. “Hartley...” he let out a shaky breath and then turned his head to plant a kiss against the palm of Hartley’s hand. “I wish I could say it back.”

“I hope that one day I’ll get to hear you say it again,” Hartley murmured. “That’s worth waiting for too.”

* * *

Saturday starts much better than Friday did. Hartley helps Cisco log into his various social media accounts and then disappears behind his own laptop screen.

Cisco’s main tumblr has completely changed visual styles from what he remembers. The name is a little different too. And he’s got way more sideblogs. One is dedicated to _Good Omens_, of course, and another to _She-Ra_. His last post there was gushing about about how amazing the third season of _She-Ra_ was and he hastily closes the blog to avoid spoilers.

Spoilers from himself about a show he’s watched but can’t remember. This is so weird on some seriously meta levels now… and he is a meta so…

His lips twitch with amusement and Cisco returns to his main blog, ignoring the side blogs for now. There’s a post that his queue had presumably just added to his blog that’s just a video of an owl so absorbed in getting scritches that it slowly leans back further and further to follow the hand petting it that it nearly falls from its perch. The wide-eyed ‘nobody saw that’ expression on the bird’s face when it straightens back up is adorable and has Cisco giggling as the video loops. But he pauses the video and starts scrolling down. Then he scrolls back up and reads his blog description.

_30-year-old nerdy millenial. Pan and happily married to gay husband @hrathaway(rat-a-way) even if does have an entire sideblog devoted to pictures of rats. Proudly inclusionist and will maim terfs if they so much as side-eye my blogs._

There was a link to the rat sideblog which is full of adorable cute rat pictures and a video of rats going utterly bonkers at the discovery of dried banana slices mixed in with their new nesting material. Cisco can kind of get the appeal of them as pets once he moves past the ‘rats are pests not pets’ mindset. He replays the rats with bananas video and can't help but think they'd make rather sweet pets after all.

Back on his main blog, there’s several articles noting recent mass shootings – Cisco remembers when those were rare and his chest aches that they’re becoming so common – and he has to stare for several minutes at pictures of Notre Dame in flames in an article about how donations to repair the damage have fallen far short of what had been promised by various billionaires back when it was still in burning. This leads him down a rabbit hole to various other major fires in the last several years, most notable of which was the 2018 fire that burned down Brazil’s National Museum.

All that history… gone up in smoke.

Eventually its too much and Cisco switches to his email account. There’s an auto-pay notice for their internet bill and a number of fanfiction updates for stories Cisco doesn’t remember subscribing to. He deletes a couple of ads and then logs into his Ao3 account. Pulling up his bookmarks, Cisco opens up tabs for the first five stories in fandoms he recognizes.

At one, Hartley reheats pizza in the oven for them to eat for a late lunch and then they set a phone alarm to go off at three so that they can grab what they need for the painting with a twist class – silicone wine glasses, some snacks to nibble on, and a corkscrew – and still have plenty of time to walk over to buy a bottle of wine before the class starts.

“So, what are you catching up on?” Hartley asked, peering over Cisco’s shoulder to see the laptop screen while he munched on pizza crust. “Oh, that’s a good one,” he observed, seeing the title of the fanfic. “Get tired of catching up on your social media accounts?”

“Didn’t really get much further than tumblr,” Cisco admitted. “Kept checking out links to news articles and there’s only so much gun violence and police brutality and international tragedies I could read about before I needed a fandom escape."

"Can't go wrong with one of Flamethrower's fic series," Hartley said with a grin. "_Of a Linear Circle_ is my favorite, but I only found it because you kept raving about how amazing _Re-Entry_ was when you started reading those."

"Well, I can definitely tell why I liked it before, _Re-Entry_ has completely sucked me in. Time traveling, bad ass Obi-Wan is amazing." Cisco shared a smile with Hartley and just... something sort of clicked in his head, though he wasn't entirely sure what. And then...

_"Holy shit, Flamethrower has a new story up."_

_"Oh? What's Flamethrower writing now?" Hartley peered over Cisco's shoulder. "**Doctor Who**?"_

_"It's in the same verse as that **Good Omens** fic that just finished."_

_"What?!" Hartley grinned and bounced excitedly, "scoot over, scoot over, I'm reading this with you..."_

“Did you remember something?” Hartley asked, concerned. “Or did you have a vibe?”

“I, uh, remembered something,” Cisco said, smiling fondly at the memory - and a recent one too, from what he could tell. "We were reading fanfiction together. Being nerds together." He shared a fond smile with Hartley for a long moment. Then he sighed and frowned. “No vibes yet. Which is good. I really don’t know how I’m going to deal with that.”

“It would be a good idea for you to start relearning how to control your powers,” Hartley observed with a frown of his own. “Maybe start with your offensive abilities or opening breaches? You liked those aspects of your powers a lot more than the visions… and its possible regaining control over those abilities will help you better control your visions once they start resurfacing.”

“I wish I could just ignore them and they’d go away,” Cisco told him, looking down and feeling ashamed. Hartley was out and proud of being a meta, trying to help the meta community not be afraid of themselves, to stand up against prejudice… and here was Cisco. Afraid of himself.

“You considered taking the cure too,” Hartley said abruptly. “You liked your powers, or at least parts of them. The offensive abilities and creating breaches. You liked how being Vibe not only allowed you to help protect the city, but also how many kids have been inspired by you. Heroes aren’t just white guys like the Flash or the Piper. It’s also black guys like Kid Flash or Hispanic like Vibe.

“But the things you liked about being Vibe don’t cancel out the parts you didn’t like. Visions you could never completely control or their origins marking you as one of Eobard Thawne’s many victims. Putting yourself in harms way and being afraid that one of us might not come home the next time we fought someone willing to kill where we aren’t.”

“But I must’ve decided the good out weighed the bad enough to keep my powers since, obviously, I didn’t take the cure,” Cisco filled in.

“Semi-retired.”

“What?”

“We, uh, both decided we’re semi-retired. Me slightly more than you, after...” Hartley rubbed his chest. “I had a near miss that freaked us both out pretty badly a few months ago.”

“They took pictures,” Cisco muttered, knowing exactly what Hartley was referring to. “I looked up the articles. The journalists go on and on about Central City’s gay heroes and what a queer inspiration we are, but all I could see were those pictures and how fucking terrified I was that I might lose you.”

“You remember…?”

“Sort of. Mostly I just remember how I felt, not what the events really were.” Cisco wrinkled his nose. “How does semi-retired work anyway?”

“If we’re involved in something that requires all hands on deck, we’re both there in costume and ready to kick ass. Otherwise, you only handle the superhero stuff on days where Barry is out of the city and I’m on the other end of the comms.” Hartley sighed and then added, “you weren’t supposed to go with Barry to check out the robbery Sunday night, but he was planning a romantic evening to surprise Iris and you wanted to help make sure he got there on time. None of us thought it’d be that dangerous.”

“Dangerous in a way we didn’t really understand,” Cisco muttered, frustrated now with that past version of himself.

“Yeah.”

“We’ve got time for the last episode of _Good Omens_, right?”

Hartley chuckled warmly at the obvious change of subject. “Indeed we do.”

* * *

The _Harry Potter_ series was always going to have a special place in Hartley's heart. It was a story about a young boy who was literally living in the closet and hated for parts of himself he was born with and could not change. It was no wonder, really, that a young, gay, scared Hartley had empathized so hard. He was less enamored with the books and movies these days, given the way J K Rowling handled herself on social media these days.

But the fandom itself continued to hold Hartley’s fascination, twisting the series to be more inclusive than the writer had ever intended. So Hartley was very pleased to be drinking wine out of a bright pink silicone wine glass while Cisco drank from and equally lurid orange glass and they both worked on paintings of Hedwig under the careful eye of their instructor while everyone talked _Harry Potter_ trivia.

Each person had their very own tiny stuffed Hedwig to use as a model and take home after the lesson was done. They’d have to come back for their paintings the next day, though, to give them enough time to dry.

“I think mine is turning out more like Pigwidgen than Hedwig,” Cisco muttered, looking a touch frazzled. Of course, so did the owl in his painting, which was more like a ball of fluff and feathers going every which way than the more distinguished Hedwig. Hartley’s was a little more self-contained looking, though he’d also given up going for a perfect bird and had more of a soft, water-colored thing going on.

“It’s cute,” Hartley told Cisco, carefully setting his paintbrush aside and checking his hands for paint before reaching over to brush some of Cisco’s hair out of his face.

“Thanks.” Cisco paused a beat, then asked, “can you get the other side too? I got blue all over my fingers.”

Hartley did as requested, then topped up both their wine glasses. “Your nose is blue too.”

“What? Aww, man, I don’t even remember touching my nose,” Cisco despaired, much to Hartley's amusement.

Pulling out some hand sanitizing wipes, Hartley gestured for Cisco to look at him. “Here, I can get that off for you.” He carefully wiped away all the paint, giggling softly when Cisco went a little cross-eyed. “Okay, so your nose still has a bit of a blue stain to it, but the paint’s all gone. And you look adorable, so there’s that.”

Cisco blushed. Hartley grins and taps his wine glass against Cisco’s (which does indeed have blue smudges on the orange) and then takes a drink as he returns to his own canvas and decides to try his hand at shading.

“This is a lot of fun,” Hartley said. “Maybe we should start doing painting with Bob Ross episodes every so often.”

“I dunno, I might just watch you do it,” Cisco said and then sighed loudly. “That’s it, this is definitely gonna be Pigwidgen.”

Hartley snickered, “don’t know why you’re complaining, being destined to paint the most adorable of owls suits you.”

Behind them, Hartley can hear one of the college age girls mutter to her girlfriend, “aww, I want us to be that cute when we get married,” and he ducks his head to hide a smile.

“Alright, so looks like you’re all doing really well,” the instructor called, heading back to the front of the room. “So I’ve got a couple of announcements to make, for those of you interested in coming back for another session here. In two week we’ll be doing another _Harry Potter_ themed lesson; this one is wandlore and wandmaking. If you ever wanted to make your own magical wand and cast jinxes on irritating coworkers,” they gave the girl at the desk a pointed look but she just smirked and stuck her tongue out at them in response, “then don’t hesitate to sign up because this promises to be a fun one. All the materials needed to make the wand will be provided, but if there’s a special core you want to use for your wand then bring that along. You can make a reservation after the class is over or do so online before the classes start.” They then listed out a few other fun sounding events, but Hartley was leaning over to Cisco at that point.

“We should see if any of the others want to do wandmaking with us.”

“That’s a great idea,” Cisco agreed. “Though that pottery one she just announced sounds… like it’d be a fun date for just us?” he sounded a touch uncertain.

“You realize I’m going to deliberately boop your nose with clay, right?” Hartley snickered as Cisco pouted… and then deliberately patted Hartley’s cheek with blue paint covered fingers. “Oh, hey!”

Cisco just cackled with laughter, returning to his painting while Hartley broke out another towelette to scrub at his face with.

“Did I get it?” Hartley asked, but Cisco just snickered at him. And he wasn’t the only one. There were some kids next to them laughing at their antics while their mom kept a watchful eye on them. He turned to them, “you guy’s will be honest for me, right? Is my face just totally blue now?”

“No,” the younger of the two boys giggled, shaking head. “But there’s a little smudge left here,” he pointed at his own cheek, mirroring Hartley’s face.

Scrubbing a bit more, he asked, “okay, now?”

The kids exchanged mischievous looks. “You need to go a little higher,” the elder brother told him.

“Oh, really,” Hartley let them guide him in 'cleaning' his face a few more times and then pretended to be exhausted by the effort to do so much to the delight of his audience. Hartley caught the mom’s eye and winked as she laughed too.

“I think you got it this time,” she told him even as her kids scrambled to insist there was more blue on his chin now.

“I may just have to live with whatever blue is left,” Hartley told the kids. “Thanks for the help.” He returned to his painting one last time. A few more strokes of gray here and there and he decided that was it. He was done. Anything further and he’d just smudge up all the white feathers he’d worked so hard on.

“Do you want to go ahead and reserve two spots in the pottery class and then we can talk to the others later about doing the wandmaking?” Hartley asked as he drank some more wine and scooted his chair a little closer to Cisco.

“Sure.” Cisco paused a moment, then asked, “how did you do that shading on the underside of her wings? I’m trying, but I think I’m just making a mess.”

“Here, can I show you? Sort of show you, anyway?” When Cisco nodded, Hartley stood up behind Cisco and put his hand over Cisco’s – getting paint onto his own fingers – and he could hear Cisco swallow nervously as Hartley guided Cisco’s hand through some more subtle shading. “Better?”

“Yeah,” Cisco muttered, a touch breathless and looking rather bright eyed as Hartley returned to his seat.

Then Hartley touched his own face and… “ah, shoot.”

“What?”

“Just got blue on my face again.”

The kids watching them, and the college students, all cracked up.

* * *

That evening, after dinner, Cisco waited until they got home to ask, “can I… that is… may I kiss you?”

Hartley nodded, eyes dark and wanting and so lovely that he took Cisco’s breath away. Their mouths slotted together in a familiar slide that made memories at the back of Cisco’s head stir.

Memories of slow, languid kisses on the couch; heated kisses with hands trying to somehow pull off shirts without having to stop kissing; desperate, biting kisses as they moved together, backing towards the bed; passionate kisses that might lead to sex later but right now the kissing was an end unto itself…

Cisco pulled away with a whine, breathless and a little turned on. He moved in for another kiss, but Hartley kept it chaste despite Cisco's insistence. 

"We should take things slow, okay? Honestly, that's as much for me as it is for you." Hartley's voice was a little unsteady, betraying how much he did not want to go slow.

But... they probably should take things slow. Today was a good day, especially compared to how screwed up Cisco's head had felt the day before, but... he wasn't there yet.

"There's something I've been wanting to ask about, but I've been afraid of pushing," Hartley said, "but then you introduced us to the class... you called me your husband."

Cisco had hesitated to do that. He could've said 'I'm Cisco and this is Hartley' or even just let Hartley introduce himself. He'd been a bundle of nerves about it the moment he realized that he was going to be called on first instead of Hartley. But... he'd wanted to call Hartley his husband out loud, just to hear what it sounded like and blurted it out, letting his normally fast speaking rhythm take him past it without tripping over Hartley's name.

My husband Hartley. It had sounded nice. Felt weirdly natural to say. Put butterflies in Cisco's stomach and a giddy smile on his face to hear it out loud.

And Hartley had stared at Cisco like he'd hung the moon just for him.

"You've been wearing your wedding ring all this time and I just..." Hartley's voice trailed off uncertainly.

"I took it off. At Caitlin's that first night," Cisco felt like he was confessing to something awful. "I left it on the bathroom counter after I got there and just... the rest of the evening my hand felt weird. Wrong. And then I woke up in the middle of the night panicking because my ring wasn't there. It wasn't on my hand or on the night stand and I couldn't remember where i put it and... and then I found it on the counter and immediately put it back on. And I've kept it on since then, except when showering or washing dishes, because I just... feel wrong when its not on my finger. And I called you my husband because I wanted to hear how it sounds. And it sounds right. But I'm still going to have days like yesterday where I'm a mess, where I can't say things like that yet..."

Hartley kissed Cisco again, light and a little needy. "I get that. Very much so. I... I have days when something will trigger me and I can't stand to be touched or I have a hard time communicating myself and I just... need space. You're always really patient with me when I get that way. How could I be any less for you now?"

Cisco feels relieved. At the same time, there's concern for Hartley because what did he go through that left such lingering trauma? But that's a question for another day.

Something jostles loose in Cisco's head, however, and there's no telling what caused it because the memory seems pretty unrelated to the turn their conversation just took. But Cisco smiles softly at the memory because now there's something really important he needs to do.

“You make it really easy to start falling in love with you all over again,” Cisco told Hartley quietly, enjoying the pleased noise Hartley made in response. “I just remembered something. I… I remember what I had planned for our anniversary.”

“Oh?”

“It was going to be a surprise, but… I want to just tell you now and then we go do it Tuesday, okay?” Cisco took a breath and then said, “we’re going to the pet store to get a rat or two. Probably two, ‘cause they’re social creatures. Or three, I guess? But preferably just two.”

“I… you… you mean it?” Hartley sounded shocked but looked very, very excited.

“Yeah, let’s get the Pied Piper his rats,” Cisco teased, and kissed him again, enjoying the taste of Hartley’s smile.

**Author's Note:**

> For those curious about the fanfics mentioned in the story: [Of a Linear Circle](https://archiveofourown.org/series/755028) (Harry Potter AU), [Re-Entry (Part 1)](https://archiveofourown.org/series/10129) (Star Wars AU), and [Innocuous Juxtapositions Outside of Time and Space](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1443688) (Good Omens and Doctor Who x-over fic)


End file.
